Child After my Heart
by lefliesoopreem
Summary: The Uzumaki family is not a happy one. The three children, Suzuna, Mitsuyo, and Orimi, tired of the fighting that goes on between their mother and their father, go away to live with one of Naruto's old friends and learn some family history along the way.
1. Chapter 1: An Angry Family

GRIPER'S WARNING: This thing is AU. In fact, so totally AU that it's not Naruto at all. It's my own creation. So, if you want to read a fanfiction that has real live Naruto and ninjas along with characters that are actually in character, DO NOT READ THIS THING. That was my fault, for all of you people who read this, expecting a real Naruto story, only to find out you were bamboozled into some non-canon garbage.

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Foreword: Ahem er, seems that I wasn't clear enough in my first foreword. I have finished writing this story, but I haven't posted all of the chapters yet. There are like fifteen or something more still stored on my computer that I will post from week to week, so what you are reading on this page is NOT the entire story. Next week, there will be a second chapter. Next next week, there will be the third chapter, and on and on and on until the last chapter is up. This is also the first fic I've ever completed, and it will replace With Haste, so an apology to the few, but appreciated, people who were waiting for that story to end.

Ciao.

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Chapter 1: An Angry Family

People never could say that the union between Uzumaki Naruto and Sato Saeko was a happy one. Sure, at the altar, they each willingly said the words "I do," but that was where their affection ended. Hardly a kiss, or even a smile, passed between the two since their wedding. Still, there must be some feeling between the two, right? After all, they had three children: two girls and one boy.

The oldest was a girl at the age of ten, with her father's blond hair and blue eyes. Her name was Uzumaki Suzuna. The next oldest was another girl, this one age eight, and she had the same features as her older sister. She was named Uzumaki Mitsuyo. The youngest sibling was their brother, a small fellow of five years, but he did not share the same physical traits as his sisters. His hair was dark, so dark, that it almost looked blue, and his eyes were a lot lighter than his sisters' were. His name was Uzumaki Orimi.

Together, the three managed to grow up without their mother in their hearts, who hated them with a passion. She never had a kind word ready for them and detested their presence. Thanks to her, the children quickly learned the value of being neither seen nor heard.

Their mother was a woman made up of only hard planes and angles. She was so stiff, it was hard to believe that three children could have come out of her. Thin as a rod, she had black hair and black eyes, a sharp, narrow face, and a very business-like, very austere aura that perpetually hung over her like a loathsome cloud of mosquitoes. Every day, she would leave for work at exactly five-o'-clock sharp, stay until 10-o'-clock at night, and then come back home at around 11 or 12, whereupon she would immediately begin grumbling about her job or pick a quarrel with her husband so loudly that all three children would wake up and hear her raucous clamoring. All the while, Naruto would fruitlessly try to placate his wrathful wife.

So not surprisingly, the mother was also universally hated by her children. Resentfully, they would watch her out of the corner of their eyes, waiting for her to make a move and never knowing when she would.

Their father, however, was a different story. Knowing that his children needed some semblance of a caring, paternal figure, Naruto became a full-time, stay-at-home dad, cooked the meals, cleaned the house, and did all the things that would normally be expected from a caring housewife. Suzuna, Mitsuyo, and Orimi all clung to him as a shield from their mother's wrath, and he willingly protected them.

One day, Saeko came home particularly full of ire. It was late, as usual, and Naruto was sitting at the breakfast table, reading a book and paying the bills.

"Those goddamn idiots don't know how the hell to do their job. I keep telling them to fill out their fucking reports in time, but what do they do? They just ignore me and leave those damn reports out to rot, and then the blame gets shifted on me! The manager keeps telling me what a bad worker I am, but it's not my fault!"

Naruto hated it when his wife swore. Then again, she swore all of the time, so it did not really make a difference.

"Please, Saeko, not so loud. I just convinced Mitsuyo to go to bed. She's been trying to stay up all night for the past few weeks."

"Well, I don't give a rat's ass. I'm going through a lot here, Naruto, and you don't even have the decency to extend a friendly shoulder or even a simple word of encouragement?"

"I…" but before Naruto could finish, Saeko had whirled around on her heel, marched into the bedroom, and slammed the door shut. Such was the average day in the Uzumaki household.

The next morning, after Saeko had gone to work, Naruto made breakfast for the children. It was a Saturday, so he made extra helpings of everything. Once the last settings were in place, he started banging a spoon on a pot lid.

"Oy, everybody! Grub's up!"

In the hall, the doors flew open, and six feet smacked the linoleum as the kids ran to get their food. Their father greeted them all with a smile and a nod.

"Dig in," which they all did, happily. Nothing but the sound of chewing food could be heard until Suzuna said to her dad, with her mouth full of eggs,

"We heard you guys fighting again last night."

"Oh, you did?" Naruto's shoulders fell slightly.

"Yeah," answered Mitsuyo.

"I thought I told you kids to go to sleep."

"It's not like we can sleep with her around," snorted Mitsuyo, "I bet you could use her to rouse up a whole base camp instead of a bugler."

"Mitsuyo, she's your mother," Naruto defended his wife.

"Like that even matters. Why don't you just get rid of her, dad?" butted in Suzuna.

"You know I can't do that," said Naruto quietly.

"Why?" asked Orimi.

"And don't say it's because we're not old enough," added Suzuna, "you say that all the time."

"Yeah, dad, why can't you get rid of Saeko?" asked Mitsuyo.

Naruto just sat there for a minute, staring at his hands, as if the correct answer was written on them.

"Well, what can I say?" he began slowly, "you guys really aren't old enough to know why I can't divorce your mother."

"Aw, dad!" whined all three.

"I'm serious. Now, finish up your breakfast and go do your homework or go play outside or do whatever you need to do. I have to clean up these dishes and go pick up some medicine from the pharmacy. Your mother's getting her migraines again."

"I still don't see why you can't just tell us," Suzuna persisted.

"Then don't try," her father said, "just finish your food and go away."

After they had finished breakfast, the three of them went to the park and pushed each other around the carousel.

"Go, Orimi!" shouted Mitsuyo as she flung the wheel with all of her might. Orimi giggled and gurgled as he whirled around and around. Suzuna, declaring herself to be old for such antics, contented herself on the swings.

"Bet you can't swing over my head!" yelled Orimi at Suzuna. Lately, Orimi had been betting a lot, not that he really cashed in on his wins.

"Oh yeah? Watch this!" retorted Suzuna as she started to pump her legs harder and harder.

"Nyah, nyah, still doesn't reach!"

And so they passed the day, temporarily forgetting that they lived with Saeko until…

"Dinnertime! Now!" They could hear their mother's voice, hard as nails, slashing through the evening air.

"I forgot, she always comes home early on Saturdays," groaned Mitsuyo.

Each of them, in front of the door, met their mother and her baleful stare.

"Grimy hands, dirty clothes, covered in sweat and sand. Have you been at the park all day again?"

"Yes, Saeko," replied Suzuna.

"Well, for goodness' sake, clean yourselves up. You sure aren't eating at my table in that disgusting state."

Oh, how they hated chafing under Saeko's iron fist, but they had no means to do anything about it. Thus burdened with this dearth of options against that woman, they all meekly filed into the bathroom to wash their hands and faces.

At the dinner table, Suzuna, Mitsuyo, Orimi, and Naruto were sitting. Saeko at the moment was in her room, changing her clothes and setting down her workthings. Once she had finished, she walked to the dining room and beckoned for Naruto to follow her.

"Naruto, come with me for a second. I want to talk with you for a moment."

Putting down his chopsticks, he obeyed and followed her.

"You just keep on eating. I'll be back soon," he promised.

This was also a common occurrence around the house, but as of late, there had been something a little odd about these tête-à-tête moments. For one thing, they used to be only at night, when the children were in bed. Now, however, they happened nearly all the time Naruto and Saeko were in the same room, and with alarming magnitude. It would not be strange to hear Saeko's voice punching through every room in the house, lacerating her husband's ears for this or that crime.

"Why do you guys keep doing this?!" they could hear Saeko's voice, though muffled through the wood, was steadily rising into a shrieking crescendo.

"Calm down, Saeko," pleaded Naruto.

"Why don't you ever tell me about this stuff you two plan, huh!? We're supposed to be married, you imbecile! We arranged for this to happen two weeks from now!"

"But we decided that next Monday would be a better day, because she couldn't wait any longer."

"What?! That's just idiotic! How am I supposed to fit that into my schedule, huh? I already have a meeting planned with all of the big names interested in sponsoring us. If I don't show up, then we go flop."

"Ok, then I'll take them myself on the train. It's not that hard, Saeko."

"Why are we even doing this again?"

"I thought it would be best for them, Saeko. We've both known about this for some months, remember?"

"I'm starting to have second thoughts on whether or not I should even let them go."

"What? Why?"

"Come to think of it, I'm the one who took care of them the most, I clothed them, fed them, gave them an education with money out of my own damn pocket, so why should I shift myself for some person who's never even known them for more than a few hours?"

The two were quiet for a while. Then Naruto spoke.

"Saeko. For one thing, you don't even like your children, and you know that they don't like you. So don't you think this will be a welcome break for the both of you?"

No response from her, but the eavesdroppers could feel the heat from the glare she was giving to Naruto.

"Please, Saeko, it'll be a good thing. For once, I want to live a day without hearing you yelling at the kids or the kids crying because you beat them too hard."

"They deserve it. Do you know what Mitsuyo did to me the other day? She planted a bag full of crickets in my briefcase. When I opened it at work, they jumped everywhere!"

At the table, Mitsuyo and Orimi were both snickering and elbowing each other.

"Man, she paddled me hard after that, but it was worth it."

"Come on, Saeko. Just a few months, that's all I want."

She gave a snort of disgust and of exasperation, and then finally agreed with a special concession.

"Fine, fine. They go, but you aren't."

"Oh, Saeko, don't do that! I have to go with them!" Naruto was flat-out begging his wife.

"No, you're not, Naruto. That's all over and done with, you are my husband now. It's either just them going, or nothing."

"Alright, alright, I'll stay," caved in Naruto miserably.

" Good, then this conversation is over. Go and see if those three are still eating like you told them to or if they're eavesdropping on us like I think they are."

"Yes, Saeko."

The children heard the door open and close and saw Naruto shuffling his way down the hallway to them.

"Hi, sorry that took me longer than I thought it would."

"No problem, dad," reassured Suzuna.

"Yeah, it's ok," added Mitsuyo.

"What were you guys talking about?" asked Orimi.

"Oh, nothing in general. I'll tell you, soon enough," he answered, "Look, everyone, I'm kind of sleepy today, so I'm going to finish dinner early. You guys, when you finish, just put your plates in the dishwasher and I'll clean up tomorrow morning."

"Ok, pops," said Orimi.

"Alright, I'll see you all in the morning. Good night, everyone."

"Good night," they replied in unison.

Their father walked down the hallway very slowly, almost as if he were shuffling. With a loud click and the thump of wood on wood, he closed his bedroom door and went to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Only a Visit

Foreword: All right, my definition of a week is very loose. For me, Sunday through Friday constitutes one week, and today's just been so grand that I felt like publishing some more chapters.

At daybreak the next morning, Suzuna popped open one sleepy eye and then the other. The first dusty fingers of sunlight had only just started to tickle her eyes, so softly, she rolled out of bed and knocked on her brother's door.

"Hey, Orimi, open up in there."

"Mmm… don't wanna. It's not light out yet."

"C'mon, Orimi, please?"

"No, I'm too sleepy."

"Just for your big sister. Don't you want to talk about what Saeko and dad were arguing about last night?"

At that, Suzuna could hear the bedsprings whining as Orimi slowly made his way to the door.

"Yeah, yeah, ok. Where's Mitsuyo?"

A quick knock and a few hushed words later, dawn found the three of them sitting at the dining table, wondering about their parents' discussion over a bowl of cold cereal(1).

"They were obviously talking about us, of course…" started Mitsuyo.

"No duh, Sherlock," quipped Suzuna, earning her a glare from her sister.

"I wonder where we're going," said Orimi.

"Or even who we're supposed to stay with," continued Mitsuyo.

"Wait, when did he say we were leaving again? Didn't he say Monday?" asked Suzuna.

"Oh yeah, that's right!" exclaimed Mitsuyo.

"But we're not even packed up to go anywhere yet," noted Orimi.

"Oh yeah, that's right…."

"What do you think pops is going to do about it?" he wondered.

"Well, maybe he'll…" began Mitsuyo, but at that moment, Naruto walked out of his bedroom, arresting any further discussion.

"Good morning, kids," he yawned.

"Good morning, dad," they replied and said nothing more.

He walked over to the kitchen, washed the dishes from last night's dinner, and then grabbed a mug of coffee and sat down at the table.

"Look, there's no need to keep your mouths shut. I know you were listening in on us last night."

A collective sigh rose from his children. They never knew how to keep secrets from him, so they did not bother with trying to contradict him.

"How'd you find out?" asked Orimi.

"Your mother was yelling to beat the band yesterday night. You would have been deaf as a post if you didn't hear us arguing."

"So how about it, dad? Where are we going? Who are we visiting?" eagerly interrupted Mitsuyo.

"Slow down, slow down. It's not even seven in the morning yet."

"Come on, come on, come on, tell us!" pressed Suzuna.

"I'll take my own sweet time about it, Suzuna," retorted Naruto, and he began to drink his coffee very, very slowly.

"If any of you nag at me one more time, I'll drink this coffee even slower, and I won't tell you until I finish."

Bursting at the seams with curiosity, Suzuna, Mitsuyo, and Orimi watched as drop by drop, their father finished drinking and fastidiously wiped his lips with a napkin.

"Now," he said pleasantly, "where were we?"

"You were going to tell us where we're going tomorrow," reminded Suzuna.

"Ah, yes, about that. Well, tomorrow, you are going to go visit a woman I know named Hyuuga Hinata. You guys are going to stay with her for maybe a month or two, or until two weeks before summer break ends."

"Huh? Who's Hinata?" asked Orimi.

"She's a woman who lives right near the coast, quite far away from any city or resort town, so it's very peaceful there."

"But why are we going to visit her?" asked Suzuna.

"She's a good friend of mine, and I've been talking about you for some time, so we decided that you guys should go meet her for a while. She's been looking forward to it for a long time."

"How long does it take to get to her house?"

"Honestly, I'm not exactly sure. We'll be taking the train there, so the ride shouldn't last longer than three hours, and then from the bus station to the rural junction, that should take about half an hour. From there, however, we'll have to walk all the way to her house."

"What for?"

"There are no roads actually leading up to her house, just a very long dirt path."

"That's weird."

"Naw, it's actually quite a nice place, once you get used to all that walking."

"When are we leaving?"

"You all are leaving tomorrow, eight o' clock sharp in the morning is when the train leaves, so you all better go to bed early tonight, alright? Especially you, Mitsuyo, so don't even think about staying up until after eleven this time."

"Eh heh heh heh…" she grinned. Naruto smiled back and mussed her hair absentmindedly.

"You know, after breakfast, you guys should get packing right away. You're going to be gone for over a month, so you'll need a lot of stuff."

"Alright, then let's roll!" Mitsuyo bounced out of her chair, "what are we all waiting for? Let's go somewhere, just as long as it's away from Saeko!" She bounded off, down the hall, and into her room. Naruto just stared after her and chuckled a little.

"Heh, that kid", he turned to the others, "All right, are you two finished with your cereal?"

Orimi and Suzuna nodded.

"Good, then follow your sister's example and get packing. You never know what you might need."

"Ok, dad," and within a few more minutes, the table was completely empty.

For the rest of the day, the apartment was bustling with activity as the Uzimaki children stuffed their suitcases full of clothes, a few books, and some toys that they thought they would need and tossed out the things they did not fit in their bulging packs. The prospect of being away from their hated mother for over a month fueled their efforts so well that when Naruto checked in on them in the afternoon, they had already finished packing.

"Clothing?"

"Check."

"Toothpaste, toothbrushes?"

"Check."

"Towels, swimming suits, and sunscreen?"

"Check, check, and double check."

"Excellent."

After they ran through the checklist, Naruto pulled all of the luggage next to the front door and embraced all of his children in a group hug.

"Have fun with Hinata, ok?"

"We will."

That night, even Saeko seemed slightly happier, perhaps because this was the last night she would have to see her hated children in over a month. She did not exactly crack a grin at the table, but she definitely was not scowling as much as she usually did.

"When are you all leaving tomorrow?" she asked.

"The train leaves at eight, so we're getting out of here about seven-thirty," replied Suzuna.

"Ah, ok. I'll be at work by then," said Saeko.

All night, Suzuna, Mitsuyo, and Orimi all tried to sleep, but their minds were all whirling; so much was happening so quickly. In less than two days, they learned that they would have to live with a complete stranger for almost the entire summer and had to pack accordingly on such short notice. They did not even have a clear picture on this Hinata woman. The most that they knew about her was that she was on old friend of their father's, ever since grade school. A little sad at leaving their father behind and a little happy at getting away from Saeko, the children were all filled mostly with anxiety. Would Hinata prove to be just as mean or even worse than their mother? Was she a boring old salt with nothing better to do but sit on her front porch and knit all day?

The next morning, Naruto came around and shook them all awake.

"Hey you, get ready."

Within the next thirty minutes, Suzuna, followed by Mitsuyo and Orimi, were all ready to go and smartly dressed. It was seven-thirty, on the dot. After a last-minute check to make sure that they really had packed everything, they drove to the station and began looking for their platform. Naruto flipped through the tickets.

"Let's see, 8:00 inter-coastal express, no stops; Platform 14." Up ahead, a big plastic square bearing the number 14 became a helpful guide.

"Hey, dad! It's platform 14, over there!" Orimi pulled on Naruto's sleeve excitedly.

"Good job, Orimi. Everybody on board." They showed their tickets to the guard, who waved them through. Once on the train, Mitsuyo and Orimi began scrambling for seats.

"I get to sit next to the window!" crowed Mitsuyo as she took the spot.

"No fair! I called it first," objected Orimi.

"I'm older, so boo to you," retorted Mitsuyo.

"Dad, can I sit next to the window?"

The trip, as Naruto had correctly guessed, took three hours. To Orimi's disappointment, there was not really that much to see outside of the windows. The scenery was basically one constant green blur, briefly punctuated with cow-shaped blurs in the country, building-shaped blurs in the cities, and big blue smears near the beaches. By the time the train reached its destination, all four of the Uzumakis on board were fast asleep.

The intercom beeped to life, and the overly-polite voice of the recorded announcer broadcast itself.

"We have arrived at our destination. Please remember to pick up any items you may have brought on board…"

"What?" mumbled Naruto drowsily. Slowly, he opened his eyes and saw the other passengers filing off. Quickly, he fully aroused himself and woke up the rest of his family.

They stepped off of the train, blinking and yawning in the sun. Rubbing her eyes, Mitsuyo took a look around and got her bearings:

They had arrived in a large town, but it was not exactly as large as a city. It was a pretty well-sized municipality. A ring of hills encircled it, and on the Eastern edge, there was a large stretch of beach. Mitsuyo took a whiff of the air; it was not at all like the city air she used to breathe.

"It smells kind of funny here," she said.

"That's the ocean you're smelling," said Naruto.

A few meters away from the train-station entrance, there was a bus stop. There, they boarded a bus bound for the country-side and drove along the lonely rural roads. Suzuna noticed that they were heading for the hills in the North, and the further they drove, the ranks of buildings thinned and then disappeared, giving way to meadowlands, still unspoiled by human development.

"It's very picturesque, isn't it, Suzuna?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah, I guess so," she agreed.

"It's been who knows how long since I last went down this path," mused Naruto to himself, "I haven't seen Hinata in such a while."

"Was she a really good friend of yours?"

"Yes, she definitely was. You guys are definitely going to have a great time."

A few minutes later, the bus came to a halt and the driver opened the door for them.

"Have a good day, sir," he said as Naruto exited the bus.

"Thank you, you too."

As the bus driver drove away, Naruto and his children stared at the long, brown path that lay in front of them. It wound through a field of tall grass and made its way up to the top of a large hill. From where they were standing, they could see the coast just behind the hill and heard the seagulls squabbling over the latest piece of food that came their way. It was almost eleven o' clock in the morning, and the sun was hanging high over the entire scene. The sea breeze whipped through Naruto's hair, and for the first time, the children could see a healthy color creep over his skin and his face. Gone were the sagging eyebrows, the half-lidded eyes, and the blank cheeks that he always wore in Saeko's presence. They were all replaced with a more wholesome picture.

He took a deep breath, "I forgot how good this air was to me." He turned around and looked at each one of his children.

"I know I don't have to remind you to be polite and respectful while you're here, right?" he asked.

"You got it, dad!" they all assured him.

He nodded, hefted the bags, and trudged up along the path with all three children in tow.

Up on top of the hill, where the path ended, there sat a small house with five rooms and a small garden in the front hemmed in with a neat, white, wicker fence. In the garden, a woman was busily tending to some tomato plants when she heard the gate to the garden rustle open and shut.

"Hey, Hinata. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

She stood up quickly, and then ran forward to embrace the speaker, dropping her trowel in the process.

"Yes, Naruto, it's been too long. It's so great to see you again!"

At the entrance to the garden, Suzuna, Mitsuyo, and Orimi quietly studied the Hinata lady in front of them.

She was a very pretty thing, with unusual blue hair down to her shoulders and very pale, almost white-colored eyes. Right now, she was clad in her gardening clothes and had been working for some time, yet her garments were besmirched only by a few streaks of dirt here and there. On their way to her house, Naruto had said that she was entering her early thirties, but she did not look a day over twenty.

After they were done hugging, Naruto turned around to introduce Hinata to his children.

"Suzuna, Mitsuyo, Orimi, I want you all to meet Hinata."

"Hi, everyone," her voice was so soft, almost inaudible against the sound of the sea breeze whistling through the children's ears.

"Hi, Hinata," they all replied.

"I'm very happy to meet you all," she said.

"And I'm sure you four will have a great time this summer," added Naruto.

"Yes, we certainly will."

"All right, I have to go, Hinata. The return train is leaving within a few hours."

"Take care, Naruto. We'll see each other again, right?"

"Of course, Hinata," and with another brief hug, he left the garden and walked down the path and out of sight.

(1) Cold cereal is not a traditional Japanese breakfast, but pardonez-moi for this little discrepancy, as I have no idea what a traditional Japanese breakfast is usually made of.


	3. Chapter 3: To Someplace New

Foreword: I also thought that the previous chapter was a sucky place to end, so I added this in as well. Heck, I'm trying to get all these chapters out before I have to go to summer camp. Well, enjoy it if you can.

--

After their father had disappeared, Hinata showed Suzuna, Mitsuyo, and Orimi through the front door. It opened to a living room that was surprisingly well-furnished for one person; there was a loveseat, a couch, and an easy chair all surrounding a nicely-sized coffee table. Before they could go a step further, however, all three children collapsed on the furniture and fell asleep, worn out by their trip across the country. For the rest of the day, they slept, and woke up only in late evening, just as the sun began to fall under the horizon.

Mitsuyo was the first to wake.

"Rmm… I hate falling asleep in the day. When I wake up, I'm all sweaty, my clothes are rumpled, and my mouth tastes funny," she thought grumpily.

She squirmed slightly, pulling the blanket that covered her tighter around herself.

"That's funny… I don't remember there being a blanket on the couch…."

When she opened her eyes, Mitsuyo found out that she was sleeping in the living room no longer. Instead, she was looking at a small bedroom with a chest of drawers located next to the door, a window looking out of the East side of the house, towards the ocean, and a small desk with a reading lamp pushed right up against the window. There were no decorations on the wall, but there were holes here and there where nails once held up a picture or a poster.

"Woah… how'd I get in here?" Slightly more alert now, she saw that she was sleeping in a bed, still with her day clothes on, but her shoes had been taken off along with her socks. Next to her bed, her suitcase lay opened and emptied.

"I didn't even feel a thing…" for unbeknownst to Mitsuyo, while she was sleeping, Hinata had lifted her from the couch, tucked her into bed, removed her shoes, and set up her room with enough finesse so as not to wake the sleeper. She had done the same with Suzuna and Orimi, both with the same amount of success. Of course, there was no telling what Saeko would have done, and such a subject is best left not discussed.

Still caught in the post-sleep slowness, Mitsuyo sat up and began rubbing the haze out of her eyes. As her senses began to reactivate, one by one, she caught a whiff of dinner seeping into her room. Whatever it was, it smelled really good. She was just about to get out of bed when someone knocked on her door and opened it.

"Good evening, Mitsuyo. I thought you might be awake around this time."

"Thank you, Hinata. It was really nice of you to put me in bed like this," Mitsuyo felt a bit sheepish for recklessly going to sleep on the living-room furniture.

"No problem at all. I just came by to tell you that dinner's almost ready. Get out of bed and freshen up before you come to the table, please."

"Ok, Hinata."

"Thanks," she said and closed the door. Down the hall, Mitsuyo could hear her knock on Suzuna's door. Mitsuyo swung her legs out over her bed, stretched, and then went to the bathroom, where she found all the toiletry items that she had packed already laid out for her on the sink. After washing her face and smoothing out her messy hair, she set down the comb and then walked over to the dinner table, where Suzuna and Orimi were already sitting.

"Hey, big sis," greeted Orimi.

"Welcome, sleepyhead," said Suzuna.

"Hi, guys," Mitsuyo sat down. In the entrance to the kitchen, Hinata came out holding a large platter in one hand and a stack of four plates in the other.

"I usually don't cook with meat since the nearest supermarket's almost a mile away, but your dad brought this nice thing with him, so why not? The rice is in the cooker in the kitchen if you want some."

Everyone seated cast an interested eye at the chicken, as it smelled better than a lot of things they had to eat at their apartment, to say the least. With a small clink, Hinata set it down on the table and gave everyone their plates. They were just about to fall upon the bird and rend it to pieces when they remembered their promise to their father to be polite and respectful. Putting twitching fingers on the edge of the table, they all looked hopefully at Hinata. She laughed at them,

"Oh, go ahead."

Eagerly, they issued a hasty "Thank you" and picked the chicken clean to the bone like three buzzards. Although it definitely was not the best chicken the world had to offer, to the children, it was the finest meal that they had ever had. Happily, they tore in with the energy natural to people who had not eaten all day. As they ate, Suzuna noticed that Hinata did not take in much herself, but rather, she seemed to be studying them with a subtle, proud glow on her face. Perhaps she was happy that her chicken was such a success.

"Hey, Hinata, don't you want some as well?" asked Suzuna.

"Oh, it's fine. I sample all of my food when I cook it, so by the time it comes to eat, I've already eaten a full meal. What I put on the table is all for you three."

"Oh, well thank you."

"You're all very welcome."

Once they had finished, Hinata cleared away the plates and then sat down back at the table.

"So, now that dinner is over, tell me all about where you guys live, and tell me how your father is doing now."

Mitsuyo volunteered first.

"Well, we all live in a small apartment near far away from here, just Suzuna, Orimi, me, and then dad and then Saeko. There's only two bathrooms, and our parents get one all to themselves, so the three of us have to share the second one. Suzuna always takes the most time because she says her hair needs more time to comb."

"Well, it's true," Suzuna defended herself.

"Both of you take longer than I do," complained Orimi, "by the time I even get to step into the shower, you guys have already used up all of the hot water."

"Then why don't you try waking up sooner? Anyways, who's telling this story? Me, or you?" demanded Mitsuyo.

"Actually, that would be all of us," replied Suzuna.

Before the impending conflict could erupt,

"Please, don't argue, continue," Hinata intervened.

"Ok, well, as I was saying, our mother's name is Saeko, and we don't like her."

"Nope," added Suzuna.

"Not one bit," Orimi agreed.

"Why? What's wrong with her?" asked Hinata.

"She's a mean old witch, and I wish she'd leave us forever. She yells at us over the littlest things, she beats us all the time, she calls us dull and slow, and she's never happy. I don't even know why dad decided to marry her."

Hinata sighed, "Well, marriage and love are strange things, you know?"

Mitsuyo rolled her eyes to the left, "yeah, I guess so. I just wish he had to pick anyone other than Saeko."

"She likes to come home every night and pick fights with dad and she wakes us all up at eleven at night," said Suzuna, "Mitsuyo here has almost given up sleeping."

"Yeah, I don't even try to sleep anymore and just stay up watching TV or reading a book or something. Dad thinks it's because I want to stay up just for kicks, but really, I don't go to bed because I know Saeko's just going to wake me up later," grumbled Mitsuyo.

"It sucks that dad had to stay back, because now he's the only one left with her. I wonder if he'll be able to make it," said Suzuna.

"Speaking of your dad, how is he doing? It's been over five years since I last heard from him." Hinata wanted to know.

"Mmm… Dad is doing okay, I guess…" said Suzuna.

"…if it weren't for Saeko barging into his life all the time," finished Mitsuyo.

"Is he not happy with his marriage to Saeko?" asked Hinata. Mitsuyo snorted, and then apologized.

"I'm sorry, but you have to see dad and Saeko together if you ask that question. I think they both hate each other, but only Saeko shows it."

"What makes you think Naruto doesn't like his wife?"

"Well, for one thing, he hardly ever smiles when she's around the house."

"Plus, he never actually calls her anything but Saeko," said Suzuna, "never Saeko-chan, or dear Saeko, or sweetie, or anything like that."

"And they fight a lot, too," added Orimi.

"Oh, a lot of married people fight. That doesn't necessarily mean that they hate each other," Hinata pointed out.

"But they fight every day! Seriously!" interjected Suzuna, "sometimes, I feel like I should go to court myself and just get dad divorced for him, since he can't seem to do anything on his own when Saeko's around. She's always got to be the boss in our house."

"I don't even know why Saeko wanted dad to stay at home for this trip," said Mitsuyo as she stared at the edge of the table, "she already can't stand to be with him for more than two hours."

"I was excited to see your father, too. I even prepared him a bedroom right next to all of yours," Hinata gestured to a door that sat at the very end of the hall. It was between Suzuna's and Hinata's rooms.

As the three females were talking, Orimi's head slowly began lolling forward and backwards on his neck. After about five minutes, his forehead smacked loudly down on the table. The report startled his sisters and reminded Hinata what time it was.

"Oh! It's past ten! I'm so sorry for keeping you all up so late," Hinata apologized, "Ok, everyone get washed, in your pajamas, and get to bed by ten-thirty. You guys must still be tired from your train ride here."

"Alright, Hinata," agreed Suzuna and Mitsuyo. Orimi had already dropped off to sleep. Gently, Hinata rocked his shoulders.

"Orimi? Orimi, wake up, it's time for you to go to bed," she murmured into his ear.

Drowsily, he opened his eyes halfway and tried to get up, but then immediately fell back to sleep. Hinata laughed softly.

"I didn't know they could get tired so easily," she said as she carefully hefted Orimi up in her arms. Slowly, she walked back to his room, humming a quieting tune under her breath and rocking him tenderly back and forth.

--

Ya, I know I said Mitsuyo woke up first, but let's pretend her siblings get ready a lot quicker than she does.


	4. Chapter 4: With This Woman

So I been thinking, perhaps the exposition IS a bit long and might take a while before we actually reach the real beef of this story. Therefore, I have decided to post the entire intro section, which I think is a better way to conduct with the whole distribution of chapters concept.

Ah, yes, please ignore any random footnotes you may see at the bottom of each chapter. The computer-to-document transfer system screws them up.

R&R would be greatly appreciated.

--

For the next few days, the children spent a happy time at Hinata's house and grew to like their host very much. Sometimes, they even forgot that they had a hateful mother at home. They forgot what it was like to live in fear of a domineering woman, and grew freer and more expressive with their thoughts and actions; quite a novel experience for them.

As pleasant as staying at Hinata's was, however, the children also could not deny that being there was slightly… boring. Since Hinata lived miles away from any city, there was little in the countryside that could capture their imaginations. They tried to make up for it by playing hide-and-seek in the tall grass, but even that game wore itself out quickly. There were no trees to climb or any rocks to turn over.

There was, of course, the beach in plain view, but Hinata would not take them there, and it was too far away for them to go to without adult supervision. Since living away from cities also meant living away from grocery stores, she had to grow most of her food in the garden in front of the house. It was a time-consuming task, and she definitely had none left to spare to take the kids to the beach, no matter how much they asked.

"Later, I'll take you later," she kept insisting.

So that was why Suzuna and Mitsuyo were sitting around in Suzuna's room with nothing better to do than watch the bugs fly past the window. Hinata was outside, gardening as usual, and Orimi was somewhere out there, most likely sitting in the living room, staring at the clock. All was quiet in the house, and Mitsuyo was just about to fall asleep when she suddenly heard Hinata's voice ring in the corridor.

"Orimi? Orimi!? What are you doing?!" she sounded frightened, even panicky.

"Orimi! Put that away, now! What did I tell you?! No one is allowed in here except for me! Put that back where you found it, right now, Orimi! Are you listening to me?!"

This was certainly off; Hinata never yelled at any of them before.

"Did you see anything? Did you open it?" Hinata asked him.

"No…n-no…" Mitsuyo heard him stammer, "I swear, I haven't. I'm sorry, I'm putting it back, see? I'm sorry I'm sorry," and he started to cry. He was, after all, still five years old. There was a pause, and then Mitsuyo heard someone knocking on the door.

"Suzuna? Is Mitsuyo there with you? Can you two come out for a second?"

Suzuna opened the door and stepped out with Mitsuyo behind her.

"Yeah? What do you want, Hinata?" asked Mitsuyo. Hinata pressed a trowel and a hand rake into each of their hands.

"Come with me to the garden. Your brother is already there," she told them. Mitsuyo could not help but notice that her voice seemed a bit more clipped than usual, and her whole body seemed abnormally tense. She was half-expecting Hinata to explode into thousands of tiny fragments at the gentlest touch.

Once they all were outside, Orimi, Suzuna, and Mitsuyo, Hinata announced,

"I want you all to be outside here, where I can keep an eye on all of you, and help me work in my garden. Today's task will be weeding, so Suzuna, you take the carrots over there, Mitsuyo, you take care of those tomato vines, and as for you, Orimi," she said, turning to look at him eye-to-eye, "you will be working next to me while they are out doing their chores. Understood?"

Orimi was still frightened of this side of Hinata he saw. Wordlessly, he nodded and followed her to where she kept the hose. Suzuna and Mitsuyo went to go tend to their plants.

"Is it just me, or do you think Hinata is acting a bit weird today?" muttered Mitsuyo.

"Yeah, what do you think got into her?"

"I don't know, but did you hear her yelling at Orimi?"

"Yeah. What do you think he did that made her so mad?" Suzuna started hacking at a defiant thistle that had buried its roots most stubbornly into the soil.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Knowing Orimi, I bet he did something outrageously stupid," said Suzuna, "but I think it's weird how Hinata's punishing us for something he did. She doesn't seem like the type of woman who gets mad a lot or does unfair things."

"Maybe, all of that niceness she showed us was just covering up this mean side of her."

"Do you mean she might be just like Saeko?" Suzuna was starting to get worried.

"I don't know. I sure hope not."

"Yeah…."

Working in the garden, while it did provide the children with something to do, became extremely tedious and boring after the bugs started to get under their skin. The sun beating down on their arms and necks certainly did not help matters either. By the time Hinata allowed them to go back in, they felt roasted through: crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside.

Without a word or a glance to them, Hinata got out the pot and started making soup. When it was finished, she set it on the table and called the children to come and eat. They had hoped she would be in a lighter mood, but once they sat down, they did not need a second glance to know she was still angry.

"Eat," she commanded, and they did. It was delicious, but the atmosphere that pervaded the table sucked all of the flavor out of their mouths.

"Go to your rooms," she said when they finished.

"Yes, Hinata," they all acquiesced and left.

They did not, however, go to their rooms just yet. Making sure Hinata was not looking, Suzuna grabbed Mitsuyo and Orimi by their arms and pulled them into her room. Right now was an excellent time to figure out what her brother had done.

"All right, Orimi, spill it. Why is Hinata so mad at us?" she demanded.

"I don't know, I just went into her room, that's all," Orimi really just wanted to go to bed and forget all about this rotten day.

"What? Why did you do that? She said we weren't supposed to go in there!" and it was true. From the first day they arrived at her house, Hinata had expressly requested that nobody go into her room.

"Idiot," said Mitsuyo.

"It's not my fault, I was bored, and you guys don't want to play with me because you're too busy doing girl stuff together," rebutted Orimi.

"Did you touch anything in her room?" asked Suzuna, "we heard her yelling 'put it away! Put it away!' all the time."

"I didn't touch anything."

"Yeah, you did," insisted Suzuna.

"No I didn't," Orimi was being stubborn.

"Tell us."

"No."

"Come on."

Out of frustration and tiredness, Orimi buried his face in his hands and started grinding his forehead with his palms.

"Argh… I'm tired and I want to go to bed right now. I don't want to talk about this," he whined.

"You're not leaving until you tell us what you did in Hinata's room," growled Mitsuyo.

"Yes, I am," Orimi contradicted and marched his way to the door, but before he could put a hand on the knob, Mitsuyo blocked his path.

"Let me out," he grunted as he tried to shove her out of the way.

"No, not until you tell us what you did," said Mitsuyo. He gave a big huff and squatted on the floor with his arms crossed.

"Ok, ok!" he relented miserably, "I went in and took a box off of her dressing drawers, that's all. I was going to open it and look in it, but then that's when Hinata caught me. Can I go now?"

"Are you sure that's all you did?" asked Suzuna.

"Yes, I swear, now let me go," he whined.

Suzuna let out a noise of frustration. She wanted to know more, but she knew if she kept Orimi in for too long, Hinata would hear him whining, and she would be even angrier than she was now.

"Fine, fine, go back to your room," she said, "you better go too, Mitsuyo, before Hinata figures out what we're doing."

"Ok," said Mitsuyo reluctantly. Cautiously, she opened the door and crept out into the hall with Orimi, and they both went to bed.

The next morning, the children woke up before dawn and quietly took their morning constitutions. They were still uncertain as to how Hinata would be feeling about yesterday, so they tentatively made their way over to the breakfast table together. She was already sitting down, staring out of the window and lazily swinging her feet under her chair.

"Good morning, Hinata."

She turned around; with some relief, they noticed that the anger from the previous day had disappeared.

"Oh, good morning, Suzuna, Mitsuyo, Orimi. I wasn't expecting you to wake up so early today," then she smiled at them, and the children visibly relaxed. Orimi came forward.

"Umm… Hinata? I'm sorry about looking in your room yesterday…" he stuttered. Hinata bent down and hugged him.

"Oh, don't worry about that, Orimi," she soothed him, "I'm sorry for overreacting and snapping at you all. Were you all worried yesterday?"

"Yes," Mitsuyo answered, "but now you're not mad at us anymore, right?"

"Of course," Hinata affirmed, "now you three sit down, I'll see what I can whip up for breakfast."

While they were eating, Hinata asked them to help her in the garden again. They agreed, as they would do anything to avoid even the remotest chance of reawakening Hinata's anger. Once they finished breakfast, it was outside to the carrot patch in the cool, morning light. All morning and into noon, they dug and scraped and weeded and shoved until dirt completely filled their senses. When they heard the clock in Hinata's living room chime twelve, they all took a rest, and Hinata proudly surveyed their efforts.

"Well, with your help, what usually takes me all day to do is now finished in only four hours. Tell you what, since we're done out here, why don't you go inside and clean yourselves off and take a break? I have some lemonade in the fridge if you're thirsty, which I bet you are."

In the living room, Suzuna claimed the sofa, while Orimi and Mitsuyo shared the easy chair. There, they sat drinking their lemonade when Hinata strolled into the room. The three of them sat up and stared at her.

She was dressed differently than she normally was, for instead of wearing her regular rough-and-ready gardening clothes, she was garbed in a light yellow dress on her body and a wide-brimmed hat on her head. In her right hand, she carried a picnic basket. In her left, she held a few rolls of towels.

"Since we have nothing better to do for the whole day, and also because you guys have been begging for me to do this for a few days, let's all go to the beach!" she grinned, "Everyone get in your swimming suits and we'll leave as soon as we're all ready, sound good?"

Immediately, all three of the children forgot how tired they were from gardening and scrambled to get ready as quickly as possible. Down the hall, Mitsuyo could be heard hollering,

"Wahoo! It's about time! Hurry up, Orimi, or else we'll let you die of boredom here while we go play outside!"

Fifteen minutes later, they were all packed up and ready to go. Happily, this merry band ambled down the hillside and towards the seashore, where they spent the entire evening building sandcastles, chasing those stupid seagulls into the water, and indulging in such pleasure that they had never had under Saeko's tyrannical regime. Hinata stood watching them from the shoreline, and every once in a while, stooped down to pick up a few shells here and there.

Once she had amassed a considerable collection, she put them all in a neat cloth bag and told the children she would be leaving for a while.

"Ok, Hinata," said Mitsuyo, "but where are you going?"

"Ah, I just left some stuff around the house. I'll be back soon. Just stay here around this area and play in the sand. Do NOT go into the water when I am gone," she warned, and then departed up the hill to her house.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," she called to them.

"Bye!" they called back.

While she was gone, the children kept their promise and stayed on the sand. They were in the middle of burying Orimi up to his neck when Mitsuyo spotted Hinata coming back down the hillside.

"Hey, welcome back!" Mitsuyo started waving towards her, followed by Suzuna. Orimi would have joined in as well, but naturally could not, so he merely shouted his greetings towards her. As Hinata drew nearer, Mitsuyo noticed that she did not have her bag of shells anymore.

By now, the sun was only half-staring out over the top of the water. Sensing the time, Hinata called an end to their play and started gathering up all of their things to go home. Weary and nearly stumbling over with fatigue, the children were nonetheless happier than they had ever been in a long time. So when they got home, washed up, and got ready for bed, they all gave Hinata a tight hug, even Orimi, who was squeamish about females in general, before turning in for the night. She hugged them all back just as affectionately, and a happy sleep fell upon the whole house.

--

I don't like the idea of Hinata dressed up like a skank, you know, with the plunging necklines and the skin-tight suits, or with makeup like eyeshadow or face powder or lipstick. It just doesn't fit her character, so for any of you who are wondering what Hinata's dress looks like, the neckline actually comes up to the neck, and the hem goes all the way down to the middle of her shins, NOT the thighs.


	5. Chapter 5: During Times of Crisis

Every week or so, Hinata would take the kids down to the beach in this manner just to keep the feeling around the house fresh and not to inundate them with too much of a good thing. The rest of the time, she would enlist their help in the garden or let them run around her yard, whatever her mood entailed.

On one particular Saturday, the three of them were playing with an old scooter they found hidden behind some bushes. They tried running it up and down the hillside, but the terrain was too bumpy to afford a comfortable ride, so they decided to take the scooter to the paved road that ran along the foot of the hill. There never was any traffic out there, so it seemed like a reasonably safe place to play, but they decided to confirm it with Hinata, just in case.

"Absolutely not," she said, much to their surprise.

"What?" exclaimed Mitsuyo, "but why?"

"The roads are never safe, and besides, how can I keep an eye on you guys down there when I'm up here watering my plants? No, you three are staying up here at the top of this hill unless I say otherwise," here, she paused to wipe some sweat off of her brow, "why do you even want to go down there anyways?"

"Nothing, we just found this neat old scooter laying around and we wanted to ride it," said Mitsuyo.

"What? You found a scooter?" Hinata was instantly curious, "can you bring it to me?"

"Sure," said Mitsuyo.

Out it rolled on its squeaky wheels that had not been oiled for years, perhaps. The metal frame was coated with rust and the rubber handle grips were nearly worn through with age; all in all, a rather pitiful looking heap of scrap metal. When she saw it, Hinata raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm… didn't know I still had this old thing lying around," she murmured to herself. "Where did you guys find this?" she asked the children.

"Eh, it was lying behind some bushes over there," said Suzuna, gesturing towards the back door to the house.

"Well, I'm sorry, but you can't play with this anymore," said Hinata, turning the scooter's handlebars around.

Mitsuyo was slightly upset right now; she warmly objected, "That's not fair, I was the one who found it, shouldn't I at least get to play with it a little more?"

Hinata did not say anything back to her, but merely went inside the house, carrying the scooter. After a while, she came back out with a coil of rope and two heavy flowerpots. Mitsuyo tried wheedling this time.

"Please, Hinata? Can I just keep it? I promise I won't take it into the roads or anything, I'll just ride it up and down the hill. Please?" Still no answer.

Hinata was a woman with a mission. Suzuna and Orimi watched her go down to the beach, with Mitsuyo following her, still alternately begging and objecting. When they reached the shoreline, Hinata waded into the water until it was up to her waist, tied the flowerpots to the scooter with rope, and then threw the bundle into the water; the high tide and the waves would come in later and sweep the scooter away. Observing this unusual ritual was Mitsuyo, who was pouting on the sand. Wordlessly, they walked back up to the house together until Hinata broke the silence.

"Mitsuyo, I wish I could say I was sorry for that, but I'm not. I can't tell you why just yet, but that time is coming very, very soon."

Mitsuyo insisted on sulking and said nothing back to her.

"All right, I hope you'll understand some day. I can see why you won't forgive me for this time, but I do have a purpose for what I just did."

Hinata's voice was unaffected, but there was a slight, nearly imperceptible catch in it on the word "purpose".

They went back home, finished up the day's work, and not another word was said between the two about the scooter.

It was only a few days after the incident that Hinata decided that it would be a good time to go to the beach again, to which the children heartily concurred. The capricious mind of Mitsuyo had already forgiven Hinata for her crime, and so the band that went down to the shore was a happy one again. Another day of frolicking in the waves and throwing sand at each other's mouths passed. Hinata was collecting seashells again, and like she did the first time she took them to the beach, she announced that she would be leaving for a while.

"Stay out of the water," she reminded them as she left, shells clicking together in her bag.

But Mitsuyo had her mind elsewhere, for although she had accepted Hinata's lack of apology and explanation for sinking the scooter, she could not help thinking about it. Right now was about as good a chance as she would ever get, so after Hinata disappeared over the crest of the hill, Mitsuyo immediately dashed into the water to see if she could find it.

"Hey, Mitsuyo, what do you think you're doing?" yelled Suzuna.

"You're going to get in trouble," warned Orimi.

"Shut up!" Mitsuyo shouted back, "I'm going to see if I can find where Hinata sank the scooter."

"Well, you better hurry up. She's usually only gone for about five minutes," Suzuna warned her.

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Mitsuyo was not listening right now. She was too engrossed with searching for that scooter. Eagerly, she kicked around the water to see if she could put her foot on it, but she could not feel its metal frame. After casting about for a few minutes, she was forced to call it quits before Hinata could come back and bust her for it. Slightly dejected, she began to wade her way back ashore.

When she was entering waist-high water, Mitsuyo felt the wind start to whip up around her, making her teeth chatter. With renewed eagerness, she forged her way more fiercely towards the shore.

As she was plowing through the waves, however, she became aware of small filaments brushing and sticking to her skin, and then an incredible burning sensation. With a cry of surprise and of pain, she stumbled and looked backwards to see…

A large flotilla of bluebottles, driven in by the wind, had snuck up behind Mitsuyo and latched their tentacles onto her, pouring venom into her blood and causing her immense pain. After only a few seconds, the stinging was too much for Mitsuyo to bear, and she lost control of her legs and began foundering in the water, screaming and yelling for help.

On the shore, Suzuna and Orimi had no idea what was going on. They thought she was up to her usual tomfoolery.

"Hey, Mitsuyo, stop doing that! It's not funny!" yelled Suzuna.

"Hurry up, before Hinata catches you!" shouted Orimi.

Now, the tentacles of the Man-o-wars were caressing Mitsuyo's back and stomach and slowly crept up her chest. The pangs in her legs ebbed to a dull throb, and she relaxed, giving no more fight against the encroaching jellyfish. A hazy film coated her eyes, and she could barely make out a woman splashing through the water towards her, a pair of arms ripping her out of the ocean, before falling asleep.

When Mitsuyo opened her eyes again, she felt as if she were wearing boots made out of white-hot iron and a toaster for a waistcoat. It was too painful to move, so she nudged open her eyelids to see the railing on her sterile hospital bed and smelled the sterile hospital air. In her room, the shutters and the curtains were closed, and the lights were off. She lay face-up with her right arm tucked next to her body and her left arm flung out to the side to receive an IV drip. Dimly, she was aware of someone rubbing her hand and Hinata's voice speaking softly to her the whole time.

"… and then he said to me, 'We never wanted this to happen, did we? But what can I do to change it?' and he spent the rest of his life searching for the answer to his own question. But he never had to, because he was already perfect in every way to me. Even when he made mistakes, he was still perfect…"

Mitsuyo was still not fully conscious, but those words sounded familiar, somewhere. Lacking any strength to stay awake any longer, she drifted off to sleep again.

A few minutes later, she awoke to see her room ablaze with light. The shutters and the curtains had been drawn back, and the window was open. For about half an hour, Mitsuyo sat there and contemplated on what had just happened and where this hospital was. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, when a nurse came into the room to check up on her.

"Hello, Uzumaki Mitsuyo, am I correct?" she asked as she made her way to the bed.

"Yeah," she answered, "who are you?"

"I'm the nurse who was assigned to look over you, now can you give me your arm for a second, please?"

The nurse took it and began taking Mitsuyo's pulse, measured her blood pressure, and concluded her examination.

"All right, you seem to be recovering perfectly normally," she said, "which is good, because your mother wishes to see you."

"What?!" Mitsuyo was greatly startled. This was the last place in the world she would ever want to see Saeko's leering face. Pain suddenly began lancing throughout her entire body again.

"Hmm? What's wrong?"

"Tell her I don't want to see her," she gritted through her teeth.

"Why not?" the nurse was slightly bemused, "She's been pacing back and forth at the front office for the entire night you've been unconscious. Up until this morning, we've had to deal with her constantly asking us to see you."

Saeko never acted like that, "really?" Mitsuyo was incredulous.

"Yes, really."

"What's her name?"

"Hyuuga Hinata."

"Oh," she breathed out a sigh of relief and felt the pain subside, "that's not my mother. She's a friend of my father's, though, and we've been staying with her for the summer."

"Ah, I see," the nurse said, "Well, does that mean you've changed your mind about seeing her?"

"Yeah, I'd really like to see her too."

"Ok, then I'll bring her with me."

"Thanks."

A few minutes later, the door burst in and Suzuna and Orimi ran to Mitsuyo's side. Hinata herself came more quietly and took her place at Mitsuyo's right. Immediately, the children began clamoring to see Mitsuyo's stings.

"What do they look like?" they pestered.

Fortunately, Hinata came to Mitsuyo's aid.

"Stop that, you two. She isn't a museum exhibit."

"Aw…"

"How are you doing, dear?" Hinata addressed Mitsuyo. Her face looked incredibly exhausted, very much like someone had pulled her skin tightly against her skull and let it sag loose.

"I feel better," she said. Hinata took her hand and clasped it between both of hers. Mitsuyo could see the same angry red lines on her legs retraced on Hinata's arms.

"I'm so glad," she breathed. For the longest time, she sat there staring at Mitsuyo with every emotion imaginable flitting across her face; sadness, happiness, and even anger at times as she reenacted these events recently transpired through her mind. Mitsuyo's gaze then fell upon their hands entwined together and suddenly reminded her of that earlier moment when they had touched in exactly the same way.

"Who were you talking about?" Mitsuyo broke into her thoughts.

"I'm sorry? What do you mean?" Hinata asked, surprised.

"A few hours earlier, I think, you were sitting next to me, talking about changing something, but you said 'he'."

"You were awake at that time?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I thought you were still unconscious," Hinata attempted to change the subject.

"No, I heard you talking to me about someone. Who was it?" Mitsuyo stuck firmly to her original question.

Hinata stared hard into her eyes. Meanwhile, at the other edge of the bed, Suzuna and Orimi were listening just as intently as Mitsuyo was.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," all three of them replied.

There was going to be no avoiding it, Hinata realized. Now was probably a better time than any other to tell them her secret. She sighed, as she had wanted to tell it to them at the end of their visit, when their father came back to pick them up, but Mitsuyo's close brush with death had ruined her plans: who knew when she would ever get a chance like this again? Dust motes caught in the light swirled around her as she brushed herself off and leaned closer to the bed.

"I was talking about your father," she said.

"Dad?" all three children asked simultaneously.

"Yes," Hinata murmured.

"Oh… you two were very good friends, right?" Mitsuyo remembered.

"We still are, but there was a time when we were better than friends to each other."

"What do you mean?" asked Orimi.

Hinata paused again. Suddenly, she turned to face Mitsuyo.

"Mitsuyo, do you remember the day Orimi came to live with you?"

"Yeah, but I was only about two or three at the time. I don't remember all the details that happened."

"Do you remember what Saeko was doing around this time?"

"Well, we never saw her around the house for a while before Orimi was born. She was gone for like, two months or something?"

"I think it was four," said Suzuna.

"Well, do you know where she was during those few months?"

"Dad said she was at the hospital, getting ready to give birth to the baby."

"Do you remember how she acted when Orimi came home?"

Mitsuyo could not forget this little detail.

"She was madder than she ever was before. I mean, usually, she's always mean to us, but this time, she kept yelling at everyone for no reason. I was beaten like, five times that day. When I asked Suzuna about it, she said she behaved the same way when I was born."

"And why do you think this is so?" asked Hinata.

"Because she hates kids; she hates us, and we hate her. I think she was mad because she didn't want another kid running around the house to bother her, especially a boy."

Hinata sighed and looked to the ceiling for inspiration. Finding none there, she forced herself to gather her own.

"Listen, Mitsuyo, Suzuna, Orimi, it wasn't you she was mad at. She doesn't hate you or Naruto at all, despite what it may seem to be."

"Then why does she beat us and yell at us and call us stupid and useless?" asked Suzuna.

"That's not her true nature; you have no idea how much kindness she would show to you, if you were her own children."

That last statement certainly was rather odd. "Aren't we?" Mitsuyo asked; Hinata shook her head.

"No, Mitsuyo, listen. You too, Orimi, Suzuna," and immediately, there were three pairs of eager eyes and ears trained intently on her.

"I've waited so long to say this," Hinata said, voice quavering, "but now… I can finally tell you just how good it is to see my children again."

A fly buzzed irritably as it tried to fly out of the window but kept running into the glass, but other than that, not a sound. Suzuna, who was the first to understand, gasped and started trembling. With a shivering finger, she pointed to herself, then Mitsuyo, and then Orimi.

"Do you mean us?" she asked so softly that the fly nearly drowned out her words.

"Yes, Suzuna," Hinata gave a smile, "you, Mitsuyo, Orimi, are all my children."

"So then, you're our--?" Suzuna could barely speak for shaking so hard.

"Yes."

Suzuna hunched down in her seat, wavering between disbelief and acceptance. On one hand, she desperately wanted to take Hinata and discard Saeko's tyranny, but living with the latter for nearly her entire life arrested her flight to freedom; instinct and human affiliation were working against her, and Hinata could sense this.

Gently, she drew her son next to her side and made him turn towards his sisters. She then raised him up and put his face next to hers.

"Didn't you ever notice how Orimi's eyes so closely match mine?"

She set him back down on the floor and stroked his head with her fingers.

"Or how his hair almost looks blue to you in this light, just like my hair?"

Suzuna shook her head slowly.

"Or how none of you look not the slightest bit like Saeko?"

"No… we never really have," Mitsuyo murmured.

"You don't know how much I've longed for this summer," said Hinata, "and for this day, when I could finally tell at least one of my babies who I really am, and not as just a friend of your father. I wanted so badly to speak as a mother should to her child, but I couldn't at first. I needed to gain your trust, so that you would believe me when I told you. I had planned to do this at the end of your stay, when your father comes, but since Mitsuyo is injured, he's on his way here right now, so I figured there was really no need to wait any longer."

"But…" Suzuna had partially regained her composure, "if you're our mother, why is dad married to Saeko?"

Hinata's face darkened.

"Their marriage wasn't out of love, if that's what you're asking," she said quietly.

"Then, why did they?"

"It was Naruto's decision, as a form of punishment on himself."

"Punishment? Why would he want to punish himself?"

"To separate himself from me, for he loved me. He married Saeko instead, knowing he could never be happy with her."

Hinata's children were confused.

"Wait a minute," said Suzuna, "if dad loved you, then why didn't he marry you?"

Instead of answering her question, Hinata brushed a few stray strands of hair out of Mitsuyo's face. She nudged her pillow so it would rest more comfortably under her head.

"Ok, Mitsuyo. From here on, I need you to listen to me, even though you're tired. Suzuna, Orimi, you pay attention as well. I will tell you the story behind Naruto and me, and you will see why he could not marry me, despite his will."

And they listened.

VVARNING: THIS IS not TEH LAST CHAPTER, FYI.


	6. Chapter 6: Unfurls Her Story

Chapter 6: Unfurls Her Story

Twenty-five years ago, a house sat on the top of a grassy hill. At its base ran a paved road, and connecting the road to the house was a long, winding dirt path. Behind the hill, one could see a beach and hear the seagulls squabbling over any morsels they could find. The wind blew regularly here, sending shimmering waves through the grass.

On the dirt path, a girl of about five years of age was walking up to the house from school. She had blue hair, white eyes, and a spring in her step characteristic of the young and eager. Today, however, she walked more energetically than she usually did.

She burst through the door to the kitchen and threw her lunchbox down on the table with a bang.

"I hate him!" she said angrily and flounced down on a chair, "I hope he dies!"

The girl's mother came in and put a hand on her back.

"Hinata, quiet. I can't have you coming into the house yelling like that, it's disgraceful."

Hinata just folded her arms on the table and placed her chin in them, glaring off into the distance.

"What's the matter?"

"It's that boy, Naruto. He keeps on stealing my lunchbox and keeps on pretending he's going to eat it before giving it back to me. I have to chase him to get it back, and everyone starts laughing at me!"

"Well, you know, sometimes, a boy just messes around with girls to show he likes them," said Hinata's mother with a playful smile on her lips. Hinata pulled a face.

"Aww, gross, mom! He doesn't like me. He just wants to make me feel bad everyday by making the other kids laugh at me, and he always laughs the loudest. It's annoying," objected her daughter.

Hinata's mother surveyed her and started nibbling on her finger.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know, just go and yell at him or something," grumbled Hinata.

"You know I can't do that. Stop being silly," her mother said.

Hinata pouted, "Fine, fine," she said, "nobody's ever on my side" she muttered.

"Just stay away from him as best as you can tomorrow until lunchtime, or tell the teacher," her mother suggested.

"Like that ever works."

"Hinata, don't talk like that to me," her mother warned. Hinata scowled even deeper and merely grunted in reply.

Her mother crossed her arms back at her and said,

"Look, if all you're going to do is be mad at me now, why don't you leave me alone and go play with Neji?"

"All right," Hinata slumped off of the table and walked crankily down the hall. She rapped her knuckles on the first door to her right.

"Neji? Are you in there?"

"Yeah, come in, Hinata."

Hyuuga Neji was Hinata's cousin, but he lived with her family, as his mother and father had died, and he was an only child. He and his cousin grew up as tightly as two siblings ever could, even though he was a year older than her. They went to the same school, but today, he had to stay home with a small cold he got over the weekend.

Right now, Hinata found him sitting at his desk. He was drawing a picture of a crab fighting off a pack of seagulls. As its creator was only six years old, it was quite a rudimentary drawing.

"I heard you yelling in the kitchen. Did Naruto do it again?" he asked.

"Yeah. I really wish you were here today to tell him to cut it out."

"But then he just does it again when I'm not looking, and then you get all angry with me for letting him do that."

"No I don't," Hinata denied.

"Yes, you do," refuted Neji.

The discussion temporarily deteriorated into a "didn't" versus "did" battle for a while. In about half a minute, though, they were ready to speak a bit more rationally.

"Why don't we booby-trap your lunch-box?" suggested Neji; Hinata brightened up visibly.

"Hey, that's a great idea!" she exclaimed, "Let's do something so bad to him that he'll never want to touch my lunch again."

Then she thought for a while.

"What do you think we should put in it?" she wondered.

"How about some worms? I can always find like five or ten hiding at the beach," Neji said.

"Ew, gross! I hate worms, and I bet Naruto eats them all the time. Besides, what if I sit on them and they get all squishy and go all over my food?"

"Okay, okay, I was just thinking."

Another brainstorming session ensued; this time, Hinata had a stroke of brilliance.

"Ooh, what if I ask mom to pack that really smelly fish she bought at that Korean goods store last week(1)? I'd love to see his face when he opens the box and smells it."

Neji shrugged.

"Mm, I guess that could work. In fact, I think that's what we're having for dinner tonight, so you can just save a bit of that and hide it in with your regular lunch."

And so they set their plans. That evening, it turned out that Hinata's mom did prepare the fish they were talking about, so Hinata surreptitiously hid a sizeable portion in a napkin and tucked it into her pocket. The next morning, she stashed it in her lunch-box and headed out the door.

Her house was located miles away from the nearest school, and her family did not own a car. Therefore, she had to ride the bus, and so she was standing at the stop all by herself, waiting for it to come along. Her luncbox reeked. Last night, the fish smelled incredibly terrible, but it had an excellent flavor once the odor was forgotten. This morning, however, it had time to sit while Hinata was sleeping, and so smelled even worse without retaining its savor. The putrid scent traveled and curled skywards, right into the nostrils of a very hungry seagull.

He had not eaten in days, and hunger had driven him to desperation. Now, the tantalizing smell of fish was near, and he dive-bombed toward its source. All Hinata could hear was the flapping of wings before something white and grey swooped down, grabbed her lunch-box, and tried to tug it away from her, squawking and squealing. She tried to resist, but the gull's cries drew his friends to the scene, and so managed to overpower the little girl and carried off her lunch with them, cackling and screaming in triumph.

"No!" she cried out after them; she was about to give chase, but then heard the bus coming up behind her. It was too late now to chase after them or go back up the hill to ask her mom to make her a new lunch, so, angry and defeated, Hinata had to get on board and go to school.

When lunchtime came at school, Hinata sat despondently at a table tucked in all the way to the corner of the cafeteria. She would sit with her friends, but they also had the bug Neji was sick with. Upset at her loss this morning, she looked out of the window and thought of a million ways to hurt or kill seagulls.

"Hey, Hinata," Naruto's voice interrupted her muses.

"Go away, Naruto," she growled.

"Heh, let's see what you have for lunch today…" he started.

"I don't have my lunch today, so get lost," she interrupted. With some satisfaction, she noticed that Naruto seemed slightly surprised.

"Eh? No lunch? What happened?" he asked.

"Some seagulls stole it from me," she answered as nonchalantly as she could manage.

"Oh…" Naruto stood there for a few seconds, scratching his head. With a shrug, he walked away.

"Well, at least this whole deal wasn't _all_ bad," thought Hinata as she stared at his retreating figure. Then she groaned when she saw Naruto stop at his table, turn around, and come walking straight back towards her.

"What do you want?" she asked tiredly when he came and buried her face in her arms on the table. This way, her vision was obscured and she could only hear everything in the cafeteria. She heard a scrape, then a thud, and then felt Naruto's finger poking her in the shoulder.

"Hey, hey, hey…" he said with each poke.

"Cut that out!" Hinata snapped and whipped her head up to face him.

He was sitting in the chair next to her with his lunch on the table. Tentatively, he scooted it over to Hinata. She looked at him with a confused expression.

"Since you don't have your lunch today… I guess I'll share," he muttered and then started eating it as fast as he could before Hinata could say her thanks.

"Hey! Save some for me!" she objected as she grabbed her chopsticks and started getting as much as she could before it all disappeared. Within minutes, the tray was picked clean.

Now, Hinata had time to be grateful.

"Thanks, Naruto…" she said; she felt exceedingly awkward. Out of all people, this kid had to come and offer his lunch. Of course, he was not gracious at all about it, but it was certainly better than his usual antics.

"You're welcome," he said.

For the next five minutes, the two of them sat there, staring at the tray and not at each other as the links between them took weirder and weirder turns. It was Hinata who broke the silence.

"So… Naruto… Er, why did you share your lunch today?" she asked.

"Somehow, the principal found out I'd been stealing your lunches and he told my mom about it. So now, she's forcing me to be nice to you, or else she'd have my dad belt me."

"Oh," and no more words were said between them that day.

Back at home, Hinata told everything to her cousin. As she spoke, he drew another picture of seagulls attacking something, but instead of a crab this time, it was a lunchbox.

"Huh," he said when she finished recounting her tale, "I guess that worked out pretty well."

"Serves him right."

At that night's dinner, Hinata related her story to her mother as well.

"Now what did I tell you?" she said in a sing-song tone, "He really isn't all that bad as you make him to be."

"It's not like he wanted to give his lunch to me," her daughter pointed out.

"Ah, but how could his mother have known whether or not he did give his lunch to you at school? She's not around to monitor his every word and action. He could just as easily have said he was nice to you without playing the part."

Despite this piece of sound reasoning, Hinata brought her lunch to the cafeteria and waited to see if Naruto would try to steal it. She tensed when she saw him walking towards her.

"Hi, Naruto," she said guardedly.

"My mom says I have to say sorry to you for stealing your lunch-box all the time," he said grumpily, "so I'm sorry, Hinata, for stealing your lunch-box all the time."

"Why did you keep doing it?"

"Because it's funny," was the blunt answer.

"No, it's not."

"Yeah, it is. I never ate your lunch, did I?"

"Well, no, but…"

"Yeah, so I didn't hurt anyone, right?"

"I guess not, but you still made me feel bad all the time."

"Really? How?"

"Whenever I had to chase you to get my lunch-box, everyone else laughed at me and made me embarrassed."

"Oh," Naruto looked sheepishly at the floor, "I…never knew that, I guess."

He scratched his head, at a loss for words for once in his still-short life.

"I'm sorry…" and this time, he really meant it.

Lunch ended, and every student in the cafeteria began throwing away their garbage and closing their lunch-boxes. Naruto, who was still standing in front of Hinata, had to scurry back to his table to gather his things and get to class in time.

"I'll see you around," he called back as he left.

The next day, she was able to eat in peace, and the day after that, and so on and so forth until she did not have to worry about her lunch being stolen anymore.

--

(1) I wouldn't know what smelly foods there are in Japanese cuisine, but there sure is a heckuva lot of stinky stuff in Korean food. For any of you who are acquainted with Korean food, just think of that weird herring-type stuff.

Yeah, it's a lame intro, but I couldn't think of anything else, so pahhhdon me for my overuse of contrived scenes and kitschy dialogue.


	7. Chapter 7: Of Friends

Rargh, I want more reviews. Puhleeze send in some more, because they are a fanfiction writer's food.

neweys, Chaptar sveven.

))))))))))))))Read and Review(((((((((((((

Chapter 7: Of Friends

--

For the next two weeks, as the young are wont to do, Hinata forgave and forgot the simple crimes Naruto had committed against her and learned to be casual acquaintances. More frequently, they ran into each other, and often on more or less agreeable terms.

"Who was that boy you were talking to?" Hinata's mother asked her one day when they were going home on the bus. From time to time, she would come into town to go grocery shopping and pick up her daughter at school.

"Oh, that's Naruto-kun," she replied, "he's the kid wh\o used to steal my lunchbox."

"Is he, now?" her mother asked with a raised eyebrow, "so are you two friends, then?"

Hinata thought for a minute. She had not really given this much thought, because Naruto really only seemed like someone she would say "hi" to if they met perchance.

"Mmm, I guess we're friends, but not close ones," she answered.

"It's a start," her mother smiled at her and turned to Neji, who was riding with them.

"So, Neji, what have you for us today?"

It was a tradition that whenever she saw Neji right after school, she would ask him what he had drawn during the day. He always was an earnest scribbler(1).

"It's the same thing as the past few weeks," he pulled his notebook out of his backpack and flipped it open to the current page. On it, he had a tortoise on the far right hand side of the paper plodding its way towards a coconut on the far left(2).

"Your pictures are very nice, Neji," his aunt said after she had studied it, "but don't you think you should be paying a little bit more attention in class? Your grades are still healthy, but I've been getting numerous complaints from your teachers saying that you frequently doodle when you're supposed to be taking notes."

"Class is boring," he said, "I've already learned everything there is to know for school."

"Even so, you should at least pretend to pay attention when the teacher's looking."

"Ok, ok," Neji said.

A few days later, when Hinata's mother was in the kitchen, chopping up some celery for dinner, she felt someone tugging at her sleeve.

"Hello?" she said when she turned around to see who it was, "Oh, what do you need, Hinata?"

"Can Naruto-kun come over to play tomorrow after school?" she asked.

"Why, of course," her mother said enthusiastically, "is he coming here on your school bus?"

"Yeah."

"Then how is he going to get home? You know that we live far away from anyone else's house and that we don't have a car."

"His dad travels a lot, but he's coming home tomorrow, so Naruto thinks he can pick him up here on his way back," Hinata answered.

"Well, does he know where we live?"

"Yeah, I told him our address."

"Good girl, Hinata." She grinned.

The next day, Hinata's mother heard the door swing open and her daughter's voice accompanied by that of a young boy's.

"Welcome back, Hinata, and is this Naruto?" she asked as they rounded the corner.

He was a small boy, about the same age as Hinata, and had weird blond hair and strange blue eyes. What was most peculiar about him, however, was that he had three lines running across each cheek, from his mouth to his ears.

"Yeah, mom, he's Naruto," said Hinata.

"It's certainly nice to meet you," her mother said, extending her arm towards him.

"You too," Naruto said and shook the proffered hand.

"What's this?" she said as she noticed his scars, "did something happen to you?"

"Oh, naw. My mom says that's a birthmark or something like that," he answered.

"They're quite… exquisite," the mother said and stooped down to get a better look at them.

"Eh? You really think so?" Naruto was a little flattered.

"Yes, I've never seen anything like them," she said. "Do you mind?" and she began tracing the lines with her fingers.

"Ahem!" interrupted Hinata, who was starting to feel slightly left out.

"Oh, sorry Hinata," apologized her mother, "I forgot you were there." She straightened her back and looked down on the two children.

"Ok, why don't you two just set your stuff down in Hinata's room? There's plenty of things to do around here, so make yourself at home."

"Ok, thank you Hyuuga-san," Naruto said and waved good-bye.

Five minutes later, they returned without their school things and Hinata tugged on her mother's sleeve again.

"Yes, Hinata? What do you and your friend need?"

"Can we go to the beach, mom?"

"Sure, but take Neji with you."

"All right." Whenever Hinata's mother was too busy to take her daughter out to the beach, she always transferred the task to Neji who, although he was only six years old, was about as mature and reliable as any adult could be.

At his door, Hinata called into the doorjamb.

"Hey, Neji, can you come with us to the beach? Mom said we couldn't go if you didn't go with us."

"I'm busy, Hinata."

"Please, Neji?" She received no answer.

"Please, please, pretty please?" she persisted.

"Okay, okay, just hold on. I'll be there in a minute," Neji relented.

After a short run down the hill, the seagulls at the shore found themselves disturbed by two little kids running around their beach and throwing stuff at each other while the third merely sat on a sand dune and watched them fool around. Eventually, Naruto and Hinata settled on a sandcastle building contest.

"Heh, mine's taller than yours," Naruto boasted. His superior construction lasted for only a few seconds, however, before it was buried under a bombardment of wet balls of sand.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, "You can't do that!" and tried to reconstruct his ruined empire. It was almost back to its former glory when Hinata came back with a bucket filled with seawater and dumped it on his castle.

"Who's taller now?" she taunted and then ran away before Naruto could throw the sand ball he was forming. She laughed when he threw his sand, only to have it disintegrate in the air before him and break apart into a million indiscriminate particles. Then she tripped and dove headfirst onto the ground, where Naruto caught up with her and started burying her as quickly as he could.

"Take that!" he cried and started shoveling on faster and faster, laughing as he did.

On and on, their strange competition went, until they were both tired out and declared both sides winner. By now, their skin was a chalky white, powdered by all that sand, and their clothes were incredibly grimy and scratchy. Only Neji was still clean, having never moved from his initial position on top of the sand dune.

The sun started to go down for the night, and Hinata looked at Naruto.

"Do you know the time? Because I think your dad is going to pick you up soon."

"No, I don't have a watch with me. Let's go see what it is," said Naruto and started back up the hill. Neji and his cousin followed. At the top of the hill, Hinata's mother stood at the entrance of the house, ready to greet them.

"Welcome back, guys. Did you have a good time?"

"Yep, mom, we did," Hinata affirmed.

"Well good," she said with a happy spark in her eye, "shake yourselves clean out here, and then you can come in for a drink or a snack if you like."

Inside, they saw that the time was about seven-thirty, only half an hour before Naruto's dad would come to pick him up.

"Hurry, get your stuff," Hinata's mother said to Naruto, "your father might get here a little early."

"Maybe we should wait at the bottom of the hill for him to come," suggested Neji, "after all, he wouldn't want to have to climb all the way up here to get to his son."

"Good idea, Neji," said his aunt, "Hinata, take Naruto down to the foothill once he's done packing, all right?"

"All right," she agreed.

At the base of the hill, next to the paved road, twilight had fallen, and the cicadas started their shrill chattering. Naruto and Hinata stood next to each other, looking down the road for the telltale sign of approaching headlights. Like the cicadas around them, they meandered aimlessly from topic to topic, not really aiming for a focus in their conversation as they waited.

"Hey, Naruto-kun," Hinata said in the midst of their rambles.

"Yeah, Hinata?" he replied.

"Are we friends now?" she asked. He tilted his head to the side and gave it some thought, trying to affect a sagacious appearance.

"Mmm, I guess so," he decided, "I guess we are friends."

"Are we good friends?" she asked.

"Maybe…"

At that moment, they both heard tires crunching on asphalt and turned to see Naruto's dad drive up to them.

"Yo, Naruto, it's time to go!" he said as he stuck his head out of the window.

"He says that all the time," Naruto said as he jerked his head subtly towards his father, "It's an old joke, but he thinks it's funny every time he says it."

"Hey there, it's Hinata, right?" Naruto's father asked as he stared at the girl.

"Yes, that is my name," Hinata replied. Naruto's father looked just like his kid, what with the blond hair and blue eyes.

"Pleased to meet you," he said kindly, "the name's Minato," and he stuck his hand towards her, which Hinata shook.

"Glad you two could be friends," Minato said, "I hardly get to see my son, so it's good that he has someone to keep him company. I sure hope you two'll grow up to be great buddies."

"Bye, Hinata!" Naruto called from his seat.

"Bye, Naruto-kun, bye, Minato-san!" Hinata called back

Hinata walked back up to her house and took a bath to get rid of all the sand she tracked from the beach. She was weary from playing outside for nearly half the day and fell into a long, dreamless sleep.

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Haw haw haw, this one's even cornier than the last chapter. I'll post up the one after this so you don't end with bad feelings.

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(1) I got this from Monty Python's "The Funniest Joke in the World."

(2) Yeah, I know turtles don't eat coconut, but Neji's only six years old in this scene.


	8. Chapter 8: In Their Middle Years

I fecking hated middle school, so that's why this is a half-hearted effort at making a chapter. Ah well, at least it's somewhat better than the last one. Again, please read and review this story. I wants them, precious.

Chapter 8: In Their Middle Years

Over the next few years, Naruto and Hinata grew up around their companionship and fostered it into something powerful. As good friends should, they supported each other in times of strife and pulled each other back whenever one of them felt too important. A near-perfect balance was achieved between the two.

So that was why Hinata was waiting outside of Naruto's math class for the day to end. It was the last period of the day, and Hinata's teacher always let her class out a little earlier than the others. Waiting with her was her cousin, who was one grade ahead of her but was also let out early.

The bell rang, and a great mass of students poured out of the door in a tumultuous horde, ready to go home. In the crowd, Hinata spotted Naruto's bright hair sticking out of the crowd of brown and black.

"Hey! Over here!" she beckoned to him, "come on!"

He came over, "Hey, guys," he said, "what's up?"

"Hello, Naruto," Neji greeted, "are you ready?"

"Yeah," he said. It was a Friday, and Naruto had arranged with his parents to go to Hinata's house after school today.

They boarded the school bus and bounced along the roads until they reached the hill. The sun poured in through the bus windows, making all of its occupants glow faintly.

At its final stop, the bus let out a pneumatic sigh and opened its doors to let out the passengers.

"Have a good day, sir," the driver said to Naruto.

"Thank you," he replied, "you too."

Hinata's mother, by now, had long been accustomed to seeing Naruto's face around her house. It grew to the point where she did not even care if she had at least a day's notice he was coming and told him to drop him at any time he felt like it. She even added Naruto to the billing information for their electricity and water and told him to call her "mom" from now on.

"Welcome back, kids," she called out from the living room, where she sat on a couch and read her magazines, "I've got stuff in the fridge if you're all hungry."

"No, but thanks," Naruto declined.

"Then what about you, Hinata? Or you, Neji?"

"No, we're not that hungry," Hinata answered for the both of them, "but maybe we'll eat something later."

"All right, have fun doing whatever you kids do these days."

"All right."

Fifteen minutes later, all three of them were heading out the door, with Neji bringing up the rear, as usual. He had retained his childhood tendency for drawing, but no longer doodled out whimsical pictures. Instead, he preferred to create more realistic images and had moved his desk right up next to his window so he could get a better view of the outside world to sketch it.

"To the tree!" Naruto cried.

Hinata, Neji, and Naruto all shared what they thought was a special tree. In these windswept hills where nothing grew but grass, they were surprised to find that a rather healthy magnolia growing on top of another hill just two peaks away from the house. They had solemnly designated it as their own, important tree where all hidden stories went to be buried and set up an honorary swing on it. Whenever one called for a meeting by the tree, the other two would immediately know that there was be a secret to be told.

At the foot of the magnolia, Neji and Hinata sat with their legs crossed as Naruto stood before them. All around them, the wind nudged the branches of the tree and made the grass blades ripple and weave like the surface of a lake did.

"What's it this time, Naruto?" asked Hinata.

"Well," he began, dragging out the first word as long as he could, "I've liked a girl for some time now…." He faltered and began kicking his toes in the grass and pacing back and forth.

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Hinata said with a grin on her face, "Has the old gung-ho Naruto disappeared? Has he become shy?" She spoke with an outrageously patronizing tone.

"Be quiet," he retorted, "it's not easy to say."

"Clear your throat," Neji always had helpful advice to spare.

Naruto tried again.

"What I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted," he cast a sharp glance at Hinata, "was that I've liked a girl for some time now…"

"Who is it?" Hinata broke in anyways.

Naruto dropped his head to stare at the grass and said in such a low voice that Hinata and Neji could barely hear him over the wind,

"Sakura-chan."

"Eh?" she cupped a hand to her ear, "Speak up, we can't hear you."

"Haruno Sakura," he repeated, more emphatically this time.

Neji raised his eyebrows and Hinata smiled with her lips closed, as if she wanted to keep in the mirth that was building up inside her like steam in a boiler. Playfully, she stood up and patted him on the back.

"Aww, that's so adorable!" she teased him, "Our little boy is growing up!" and rubbed his hair like a mother would do to an affectionate son.

"Knock it off," Naruto shoved Hinata's hand off of his head, "I'm being serious."

"Heh heh, I still think it's cute," she said, still smiling.

Neji, during this time, was watching the proceedings with an amused spark in his eye.

"Sakura-san, eh?" he asked, "I never would have guessed."

"Yeah, she's real nice to me, and she's real pretty as well."

"No doubt about that," Neji cracked a rare grin.

"So you want us to help you win her over?" Hinata guessed what Naruto would say next. He gave a wordless nod, a little too embarrassed to do anything else.

"Then we'll consider it done," she stood next to Naruto and thrust her hands in front of their eyes, "I'll have her so fast on you like a housefly to a rotten sandwich."

"Thanks for the comparison," Naruto replied dryly.

In the next two weeks, Hinata stayed true to her word. With remarkable finesse, she used all of her innate knowledge of the female mind to ply and steer Sakura's path on an intersecting course with Naruto's. It was with some satisfaction and a small dash of pride that Hinata finally spotted Naruto walking out of class, chatting amiably with Sakura, and so paid off all of her efforts.

Later that day, Naruto came over to Hinata during lunch, because they always sat together. The other regulars at their table were Neji, a boy named Uchiha Sasuke, and a girl named Tenten. Tenten raised a ruckus when she saw Naruto walking over and smacked his back and gave him her hearty congratulations. Sasuke just looked at him out of the corner of his eye with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, as if Naruto's and Sakura's relationship was part of his plan the entire time.

"Ahh," Naruto breathed out as he sat down, then he faced Hinata, "thanks so much, Hinata. Really, I'm so glad for what you've done for me."

"Hey, no problem," she said with a grin, "This whole manipulation of minds and bringing soul mates together scheme is more fun than you can imagine."

She took a bite out of her lunch.

"Say," she said after she swallowed, "Aren't you going to sit with Sakura-chan? I mean, she is your girlfriend now."

"Well, yeah, but we always sit together, and I told her that. She said that was okay, and she actually wants to come sit with us here."

"Well, why isn't she?"

"That one girl, Ino, came along and practically dragged her to their table. Apparently, they've been friends just as long as we have, so Sakura can't come here either."

"Ahh…"

As it turned out, this would be the last normal lunch that any of them would have. The next day, Naruto was very late to the table and did not feel like eating, claiming that he had to make up a math test and that it had robbed him of his appetite. The day after that, he did not show up at all, as he was sitting at Sakura's table. After lunch, he explained to Hinata that Sakura had insisted he sit with her, and that as her boyfriend, he couldn't just as well say no.

"Oh, don't worry about that, Naruto. It's absolutely fine," Hinata insisted, "besides, we still see each other plenty of times after school."

"Yeah!" Naruto seemed much happier after that, "ok, I'll see you later then, Hinata."

But even that seemingly inviolable sanctuary was eventually broken.

"Hey, Hinata," Naruto said to her after school on a Wednesday. Hinata was fetching some of her books out of her locker to take home.

"Yeah?"

"I can't go to your house today," he mumbled the last three words so softly that Hinata could barely catch them.

"Eh? Why not? We were planning this for a while."

"Yeah, I thought so too, but then I remembered I'm on a date with Sakura-chan tonight."

"Oh, then go. This kind of stuff is much more important," she said, "We can always meet again on Friday."

"Can't…" Naruto seemed crushed, "Sakura's taking me to dinner that night…."

"Aww," Hinata sighed, "Well, I guess there's nothing to it except meet up again next week. What do you think?"

"Yeah, next week sounds cool. I'll tell her that," he said. Just then, both of them heard Sakura's voice. She was standing on the far end of the hallway, waving towards Naruto.

"Hey, Naruto! You ready to go?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there!," Naruto called to her and then turned to Hinata, "I'll see you next week, then?"

"Yep. Have fun, you two," she replied and waved back at Sakura.

So Hinata went home and waited until next week, when they did have some time for themselves and enjoyed it immensely. Such meetings, however, became few and far in between, for Sakura entered the picture again and pulled him away on this date or that date or some little outing they had planned together. Naruto, eager to please as he was, did not have the heart to say no to her and barely had the courage to tell Hinata that, no, he couldn't go home with her again today. Each time, Hinata assured him that everything was ok, and that he should just forget about her and have a good time by not worrying so much.

She said these things, meaning them sincerely in her heart, but even so, she noticed that her house seemed to be much quieter and more somber than usual.

Neji noticed it too. Once, when Hinata was bent over her desk doing homework, Neji walked in and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Homework. Have to finish it before this Friday, or my science grade is toast." She answered without looking up.

"Oh, I thought you and Naruto were going to work on that today."

"Well, we were, but he's with Sakura right now, on some date or something. I think they were going to go see a movie or something?"

"Ahh, that's right. It's a pity, though, he doesn't come over as often as he used to."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Little by little, Haruno Sakura was no longer an adorable addition to Naruto, but became more like a small rut in a road and progressively into a large, gaping hole. Finding time together was nigh on impossible, and every moment they could have share had to be dearly bought with excessive planning and frustration. A small twinge began flickering in Hinata's heart. She was still glad that Naruto was happy with Sakura, but a very small part of her began wishing that he did not have to be so occupied all the time.

No more tangible was this irritation, however, than it was when their science teacher assigned them another group project to work on.

"This assignment will take you about a few weeks to do, if you all don't procrastinate," said their teacher, "and I'm also letting you all choose your own buddies for this project. You'll be assigned two people per group, so starting with Miruchi here, everyone pick your partners."

Hinata felt hopeful. If she could get Naruto on her team, then she would have a legitimate reason to pry him away from Sakura for just a few precious days.

"Haruno Sakura," the teacher called out, "pick your partner."

"I call Naruto," she said.

It was at this moment that Hinata realized it would be impossible for her and Naruto to meet comfortably as long as there was a Sakura to stand between them. The web of emotions and human bonds had ensnared her, and the spider was ready to devour her when that small twinge of hers shook itself into resent and threatened to become anger. More and more, she kept thinking about the fun things she and Naruto could do, if it were not for that girl in the way. It became hard to remind herself that this was what Naruto wanted, and that if she were a good friend at all, she should let him go with his heart; so there was nothing she could do but look at them wistfully from the sidelines and think about what could have happened and what did happen.

"Neji, can I come in?" she asked at his doorway.

"Yeah, come in."

Hinata stepped inside Neji's room. She needed a stapler to bind the report that was lying on her desk, and she saw it sitting right on Neji's bookcase. The main occupant of the room was sitting at his desk, facing out the window again, fully engrossed in another one of his pictures.

"Can I borrow your stapler?" she asked.

"Sure, go ahead," he did not bother to look up as he said so. As Hinata passed him to get it off of the shelf, she could not resist taking a quick peek at Neji's notepad. There, she saw a seagull perching on a rock, where it stared off to a brilliant sunset over a large beach. In the lower left corner, there rested a small pile of coconuts under a coconut palm. All of them, however, were rotten to the core and would never grow up to become new trees.

"Quit staring," Neji said, interrupting Hinata's gaze.

"Oh, sorry, sorry," she turned slightly red at having been caught so neatly. She returned to the task of fetching the stapler from the bookcase when she noticed a small photo right next to it. In it, Neji and Hinata were on the bottom, sitting next to each other and smiling, while Naruto was standing in between them with an arm around both of their necks and a wide grin on his face. Hinata inadvertently let out a soft, "Oh…" in surprise: she had no idea Neji had this picture in his room.

"Yeah, I know," Hinata heard Neji's voice behind her. He had sidled up next to her and was now staring at the same picture, "this was when Mom got her new camera, right?"

"Yeah," she said, "I remember now. She was so eager to try it out that she made us all stand outside and snapped this photo. You've had it all this time?"

"Mhm. I even went to get it developed with her."

She absentmindedly brushed some dust off of the frame, "I wish he could come over like he used to."

"Is he still stuck with that Sakura girl?"

"I think so. By all appearances, they're going to stay together until hell freezes over."

"Oh, I wouldn't say it's that bad. Perhaps they'll develop a more flexible relationship."

"Yeah, _perhaps_ is the key word here," Hinata said.


	9. Chapter 9: Where They Might be Torn

_UPDATE(ish type thing): When I wrote/posted this chapter, I had no idea that lil.ramen.lover had already done something similar. So just to clear that up. I am NOT a copycat._

_Blegh, this is my least favorite chapter in the entire story, particularly because I just _hate_ using the word "date" at all. Of course, I could just use synonyms for "date", but then my characters would sound artificial if they spewed phrases such as "when will be our next romantic meeting?" Oh well, although I think this chapter sucks, it's still important in plot development, so I had to include it, ok? (P.S., I also hate middle-school "romance" because kids of that age are not mature enough to handle the strains of love, just to get that out of the way, so bear in mind that the "courtship" between Naruto and Sakura is not real)_

_Remembah, reviews please!_

Chapter 9: Where They Might be Torn...

A certain tiredness had overtaken Hinata. It was not evident in her daily actions or emotions, but there was a peculiar aura around her, one that gaped and gasped for substance that was not there. The days became longer, almost unbearably long; her patience was shorter, making her much more abrupt and quicker than usual, and all the while, she would watch as her ties with him were slowly, excruciatingly usurped and deleted by Sakura.

Even so, she learned never to keep her ears shut. In the hallways of her middle school, where news flies faster than a bullet, Hinata heard snips of rumors about trouble in Naruto's and Sakura's relationship. It was nothing dramatic: neither of them were engaging in affairs, starting quarrels, or full-blown screaming contests, but it was simply that the bond between them was starting to fade. Words imparted to each other became less affectionate and tender, and hugging and kissing was reduced to just hugging and finally simple hand-holding.

"Naruto," Sakura said to him after school one time. They were walking together, on the way to his apartment.

"Yeah, Sakura-chan?" he replied.

"Do you feel that we're starting to drift apart?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we don't kiss anymore, our conversations have been getting thinner and shorter every time we meet…" she paused, "I think that you're starting to think of other things than just us together."

"No, I'm not," Naruto tried assuring her.

"I think you're lying. Come on, Naruto, you've been acting quite wistful, and I promise you I won't get angry if you tell me what you're thinking about."

"I'm fine, seriously, Sakura-chan," he kept saying.

"Come on," she pressed him gently at first, then harder and harder, "please?"

"No, it's alright, I'm not telling you," he insisted, but his voice was definitely not as resolute as it was before. Sensing this, Sakura doubled her efforts.

"Naruto, I know you're thinking about something else, so tell me right now, or I will hate you for the rest of my life," she spoke in jest, but he could hear seriousness behind her words.

"Mmm," he teetered on the very edge.

"I'm waiting," Sakura tapped the side of her head.

"Alright, you win," he gave up and toppled over the brink. They walked along for a few more paces as Naruto tried to screw up enough courage to say what he wanted to say. Sakura respectfully held her tongue and waited for him to begin. After some throat-clearing and a deep breath, he started,

"I still like you, Sakura, but I kind of feel that I don't have any of my own time..." He stopped speaking here to study her face; so far, so good; no signs of outrage or surprise on it.

"Continue," she said.

"…and I wish that I could have some time, you know, not on a date with you," his ears started turning red, "I mean, it's not like I hate you or don't like your company. It's just that… you know Hinata?"

"Of course. She sits right next to me in science; I think she seems like a very nice girl."

"Well, I've already told you she was my best friend since I was five years old, but since I'm so busy going out with you, I haven't had enough time to see her and… stuff," he faltered.

"So is that what you've been thinking about, Naruto?"

"Yeah, every time I see her at school, I feel kind of bad that I'm not acting like a friend to her anymore." He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the tirade to begin.

To his surprise, however, what he heard was a small laugh coming from Sakura.

"Aww, you should've told me," she patted his head and smiled, "I'm sorry, was it because I've been dragging you off on our dates too many times?"

He shook his head, but Sakura was not convinced.

"Naruto, the truth, please."

So he slowly nodded his head and averted his gaze. His ears were flaming scarlet when Sakura pulled him back into a reassuring hug.

"You always were too considerate of me for your own good, Naruto," she chuckled, "do you want to go visit Hinata again? (Gaw, I feel like a mother dealing with her child)"

"Yes, that would be nice."

"Ok, then it's settled. We'll cancel our date we set for tomorrow, and you can go to her house instead, alright?" she let go of him, "See? It's really quite simple. All you had to do was say 'no' whenever I asked you out, and I would have let you. I'm not like one of those clingy, overly-possessive girlies who throw themselves into histrionics every time their boyfriends go away. Go have fun tomorrow, alright?"

Naruto started smiling again, and his embarrassed crimson dissipated into a calmer beige.

"All right, Sakura-chan. Thank you so much."

"No problem, Naruto."

The next day, when the last bell rang, Hinata was already at her locker, pulling out books again to take home. This was her normal routine after school ever since Naruto started going out with Sakura, so she was completely unprepared when she heard Naruto's voice murmur into her ear,

"Hey, Hinata. What's up?"

She whirled around and saw him standing before her, with his backpack already on and hands thrust into his pockets.

"Naruto!" she said, slightly startled, "what are you doing here? Aren't you usually with Sakura by this time?"

"Yeah, but I get to walk with you today."

"Really? Why?"

"What? Should I go with her instead?"

"Oh, no, definitely not! But it's just weird. I can't recall the last time you ever walked home with me and Neji."

"I think that was like, a month and a half ago?"

"Geez, that's a long time," just then, she saw Neji walking down the hallway, "Hi there, Neji!"

"Hello, Hinata," he returned the greeting, "and hello, Naruto. It's certainly good to see you again."

"You too, Neji."

"And may I ask why you're with us today instead of with Sakura-san?" asked Neji.

"Oh, well, turns out that I could have done this a lot sooner, whenever I pleased," Naruto hesitated slightly and then finished his statements in a rush, "I was too afraid of hurting Sakura-chan's feelings by saying 'no' to our dates that I forgot about you guys, and I know it was a bad thing to do, and I'm sorry, but yesterday, she told me that I could do whatever I wanted, and so I wanted to be with you guys again, and so yeah, I'm back." He visibly deflated.

"Come on guys, let's get out of here. We're almost late for our bus," Hinata said. The hallway was already deserted as everyone else had left for home already.

Since Neji and Hinata lived so far away from the school, they had to take a special bus that connected from the inner city to their isolated little domicile out in the countryside. It was not a school bus, but there was a stop located not more than a five-minute's walking distance from the school, where all three of them were headed for right now.

"Are you going to come home with us?" Hinata asked Naruto on the way there.

"Well, I don't think so. I told my mom I might be a little late in coming home, but it's just so I can see you guys off at the bus stop. I haven't made arrangements with your mother, after all, about going over to your house."

"Oh, come on, you should know that our open-door policy with you is still in effect at home. You can still come in whenever you feel like it."

Naruto thought a little more, and then he turned to Neji.

"Neji, I know I can count on you for a straight answer, right?"

"Of course, Naruto."

"Would you mind if I came to your guys' house right now? I haven't even spoken to you before today for almost two months."

"We wouldn't mind a bit; Hinata is telling the truth. Our mother would be very happy to see you again. She's been nagging at us during your absence about where on earth you could possibly be. It's almost like you're her second son."

Naruto smiled at that,

"Well then, I guess that settles it. I really want to go to your house again, too. In fact, I was half-hoping this entire time that you would keep insisting that I go home with you."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" said Hinata, "the bus is right there, let's go take you to mother."

Over the bumpy country roads, they bounced and bucked until they reached that hill Naruto had not seen in quite a while. He stared at the path, which was once familiar to him, now made new and strange again.

"Wow, I thought I remembered this place pretty well, but it's changed, I think."

"Naw, Naruto," said Hinata, "it's the same old house it's always been. You've just forgotten a lot."

They burst through the front door, where they could hear Hinata's mother issuing her salutations from the kitchen.

"Welcome home, guys! I'm a little busy here, but I left some stuff on the table if you want any."

"Ok, thanks mom," Hinata called back, "guess who we brought with us?"

"The prime minister of Japan," was the distracted answer.

"Don't be silly, mom. Guess!"

"Ok, uh… Kiba?"

"No, mom. That was only for that one project."

"Ok, I'm stumped. Who's it there?"

"Hi, mom," Naruto called to her.

There was a light tinkle of steel hitting the sink and the spattering of small feet running to the front door. Hinata's mother rounded the corner; her eyes crinkled when she saw Naruto standing with her daughter and her nephew, and she pulled all three of them inside with joyful force.

"Naruto! It really is you!" she cried, "where were you all this time? It's been what, weeks, months, years since I last saw you?"

"It was about two months, mom," Hinata said.

"Ok, months then, but still, that's a long time. What have you been doing all this while? Did you think my cooking sucked? Or that you wanted to save us money on our electricity bill?" she cocked an eyebrow as if she were glaring at him, but there was no hiding the laughter shining through her pupils.

"Naw, mom, it's just that I…" he dropped his voice down to an almost inaudible level, "…got a girlfriend."

She clicked her teeth.

"Hmm, a fine one too, I bet," and she winked at him, just like so.

"Yep, she's a looker," chimed in Hinata; her mother whistled.

"Alright, knock it off," Naruto said, smiling. Hinata's mother laughed.

"Ok, ok. Well, it certainly is nice to have you back. Make yourself at home, like you always did, alright? I have to finish paring these potatoes" and she waltzed back to the kitchen, humming a little tune as she went.

And so it began, this small crusade that would gradually repair the rotten bridge of relations between him and the Hyuuga family. Plank by plank, rope by rope, nail by nail, over the course of many days, they learned to become good friends again.

On one particularly sunny day, Naruto and Neji were sitting on the couch in the living room, both staring at the ceiling. Hinata had gone back into the kitchen, saying that she was going to fetch something.

Suddenly, Naruto stood up quickly and started rubbing his head.

"Ow!"

That last interjection burst forth from his lips when something bit the nape of his neck. Whipping his head around, he turned to see Hinata draw her hand behind her and whistle nonchalantly. Feeling Naruto's baleful stare, she turned to look at him.

"What are you looking at?" she said.

"Nothing in particular," he replied.

"Then I suggest you turn that empty head of yours around."

"Whatever."

With a flourish, Hinata presented a small key.

"Remember this?"

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"We're going to do that?" he asked; voice trembling slightly from excitement.

"Yep. I hope your wrist has healed by now, Naruto. We're going to make you the next Evel Knievel."

"Well, what are we waiting for? I'm ready!"

"Patience, young one," Hinata remonstrated as she slipped the key into a small storage closet lock. Once she heard the tumblers click into place, she opened the door, took out a folded-up scooter, and lugged it outside.

On clear days, such as this one, Hinata and Naruto, and sometimes even Neji, would drag out this scooter and coast it all the way down the hill. Occasionally, when the wind was blowing behind them, they could attain such incredible speed that the air would threaten to tear their eyes from their sockets. Entire afternoons had passed by this way, with them whooping and hollering as they bounced the scooter back and forth from top to bottom.

They had to be careful, however, because they were riding on bumpy, untamed, grassy land. Naruto remembered the time he had gone a little too fast over a hidden molehill paid for his heedlessness with a sprained wrist.

"You ready?" Hinata asked him. He gripped the handlebars tightly and stared down the incline.

"Yep, let's go," he said and pushed off down the slope.

"Whee!(1)" Naruto's voice grew smaller and smaller the closer he got to the foothill. Once he finished, he trudged back uphill with the scooter in tow and passed it back to Hinata.

"All right, your turn. See if you can make it down faster," he challenged.

"You call that fast?" she scoffed, "I'll put that as a brisk walk at best. Watch this."

She zipped down, definitely faster than Naruto had gone, and returned with a triumphant glow on her face. Once back up on top, she glanced pointedly at Naruto.

"Well?" she asked.

"Most impressive," he grumbled.

Neji said nothing, but gave each of them a knowing smile. Crouching low, he took his turn on the scooter and was at the bottom faster than the other had ever seen anyone go. Quite surprised, Naruto and Hinata could only stare at him once he made his return.

"Holy—" started Naruto.

"You out of all people," Hinata wondered.

"Ah, it was quite surprising, wasn't it?" Neji said dryly, "care to challenge me again?"

"Nah, you're good," Hinata answered for the both of them.

For the rest of the day, and all the way until Naruto had to go back home, they repeated this cycle of going up and down the hill. If an outsider were to pass by, he would undoubtedly have shaken his head at their seemingly pointless antics and moved along, but for these three souls, they knew they were doing something more important than anything else they had done for what was to them a long time.

As these bonds grew, however, the one he held with Sakura began to decay; he could only spread himself out over so many places at one time. Even so, it did not degenerate into anger and deep affliction on both sides, as it does with so many other such incidents. Rather, there was mutual understanding that ultimately, they were not compatible in love, but that did not mean they could not be friends.

On a lazy Saturday afternoon, Sakura was visiting Naruto's house. They were sitting outside together, playing chess; Sakura was a very intelligent girl, after all.

"Checkmate," she crowed as she smacked her queen right next to Naruto's king. She was protected by a knight, so there was nothing Naruto could do but accept defeat.

"Good game," he said and knocked over his king.

"Say Naruto," said Sakura as they were resetting the board, "how have things been between you and Hinata?"

"Oh, I'd say they've been pretty good," he replied.

"Really now? How so?" Up went the pawns.

"Mmm, I go to her house a lot more these days-- thanks a lot, by the way, for that-- and we have a swell time together."

She laughed, "Swell? I don't know when's the last time anyone has ever used that word in regular speech."

"Well, you know, it never hurts to talk old-timey once in a while."

"Very true," the rooks, bishops, and knights were all set in place, "I'm glad you're happier now."

"Thanks a lot, Sakura."

"In fact," she continued, "I think you're a lot happier when you're with her than you are with me."

Naruto began to feel nervous, "Oh, Sakura, please don't think that--"

She gave him a playful punch on the shoulder.

"Relax, Naruto, I'm not jealous at all. Remember when I told you that I'm not a clingy girlfriend?"

"Oh, yeah…"

"I'm just saying that I think you're happiest with Hinata, and that's a good thing, okay?"

"But I don't _like _her."

"I know, but you still act much more relaxed when you hang around with her, much more so than you are with me. Am I right?"

"Well…"

"Tell me honestly, Naruto. How many times do I have to tell you I won't be angry?"

"You won't mind at all?"

"Of course not."

"Then yes," Naruto said, "you're right."

She smiled at him.

"I knew it."

He looked at her, slightly bewildered and very nervous.

"So what are you trying to get at, Sakura-chan?"

She moved her pawns to the center of the board,

"What I've been thinking is that maybe, we were never meant to be boyfriend and girlfriend."

Naruto opened his mouth to refute her claim, but then he really thought about it. Why was he still with Sakura anyways? He never fully appreciated himself like he thought he would; it was never a raging fire of amour(2), but more like friendly embers. Her suggestion was reasonable. There was no more reason to carry on this frivolous game that they masqueraded as love.

"No, I guess not," Naruto rubbed the back of his head, "I guess we were never meant to be in love. Just regular friends, then?"

Sakura grinned, "suits me just fine, Naruto."

"Ok, then it's official. I guess we are both now…" he paused, struggling for a better word,"… broken up."

He paused for a while.

"That's funny, I thought this part of a relationship would be the most dramatic, you know, with all the screaming and hair-pulling and the crying and stuff?"

Sakura stroked her chin and assumed an exaggerated look of contemplation.

"You know, you're right. Do you think we should make a row just for tradition?"

"Nah, it's good to meet you, Sakura-san."

He stuck out his hand. Demurely, she took it into her own, and they shook gently.

"You too, Naruto-kun."

000000000000000000000000000000

(1)Who says whee anymore?

(2)I can't believe this is part of the English lexicon


	10. Chapter 10: Yet Patched Together Again

Foreword: I fergot to remove the shoe imagery from the first version of this chapter I posted up, so yah, I really really really am sorry for those who had to read it. Hopefully, this version will seem more agreeable

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Chapter 10: Yet Patched Together Again

Naruto was happier than he remembered being for a long time. Unrestrained by concerns about Sakura, he was free to rollick in the world at Hinata's and Neji's side to his heart's content. Through the summers and winters of three years, when they made up two juniors and one senior in high school, they cavorted through the intricate two-step of growth, pulling and pushing each other along the way. Time wound the thread tighter and tighter around them like a child lacing up a new pair of shoes; hand over hand, step by step, growing closer and closer with each iteration.

It was on one particularly lazy Friday afternoon that Naruto was staring out of the window of his classroom, letting his gaze fall upon the clouds, then the birds, and then the various bugs that crawled along the panes. So detached was he from his actual lesson that he did not hear the teacher call his name until someone elbowed him in the ribs.

"Naruto. Naruto? Hello, Naruto?" the teacher called to him, sounding slightly flustered, "man alive, this is the fifth time this week you've zoned off in my class. What on earth can you be thinking about?"

"Aw, come on, it's almost the weekend," Naruto tried rationalizing.

"No excuses, now sit up and pay attention. You can't afford to miss this lecture."

"Alright, I'm awake," he sniffed, wiped his nose, and slapped himself in the cheek a couple of times, just to make sure. For the first few minutes, he held his own admirably well. As the instructor continued to drone on, however, his chin came closer and closer to his chest as his head became wilted by boredom. He was just about to fall asleep when the final bell of school rang, waking him up with a snap and sending him careering into the hallways faster than anyone else in his classroom.

"And a good-bye to you too, Naruto," he heard his teacher call behind him.

Out at the school parking lot, Naruto met Hinata at a street-light, their usual rendezvous point.

"Hey dude," he held up his hand, palm faced outwards, in greeting.

"Hey dude," she returned the gesture, "you ready?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, "where's Neji?"

"He has to stay really late after school today. Competition is tomorrow, remember?" Neji, with his exceptional analytical prowess, was made captain of the senior math team at high school and was often employed in late, after-school practices with his team, such as he was today.

"Oh yeah…. Okay, then there's no point staying here any longer. Let's go," Naruto readjusted the shoulder straps on his backpack.

They walked into a parking lot nearby the school and, in the midst of all of those cars, found a rather well-used vehicle sitting right next to the entrance. It belonged to Hinata, for in light of the irregular schedule of high-schoolers, her mother had seen fit for her to get a car that both Neji and Hinata could use for their own good. The bus that linked their house to the city only ran twice a day, after all.

After getting in the car, they paid the guard at the entrance of the parking lot and wound their way through the busy thoroughfares of the city, swerving their way around other cars and dodging the occasional jaywalker. Eventually, the concrete jungle thinned out into a pristine meadow, marked only by one long, black ribbon of empty road. The sunlight lit up the grass around them into brilliant greens and yellows, their tips swaying and pulsating to the gentle rhythm of the wind.

Feeling the mood was right to listen to some music, Hinata stuck a CD in her dashboard and hit the Play button. A soft voice could be heard singing,

"Oh every night, I open up my window, open up my window…."

"Oh, dear gawd, not this guy again," Naruto groaned and stuffed his fingers into his ears.

"Aww, what?" Hinata asked teasingly, "What's wrong with Christopher Cross?(1)"

"Can't you see for yourself? This guy has no originality whatsoever," Naruto griped, "He just opens his window over and over and over again." Affecting a terrible imitation of the singer's voice, he began to warble in a grating falsetto, "Oh every night, I open up my window, open up my window, I open up another window, golly, there's a lot of windows to open tonight…"

Before he could go any further, Hinata's hand dealt him a sharp slap to the back of his head.

"Who's driving this car, me or you?" she asked. Without waiting for the obvious answer, she continued, "that's right, so I suggest you sit down and shut up."

Naruto sat sullenly, but then stole a quick glance at Hinata to see if she was looking. She was too busy looking at the road stretched in front of her, so silently, he reached over to the volume control and turned it up by an infinitesimal degree. Little by little, he kept pumping up the volume in this way until the song had reached a deafening roar. The car's small frame threatened to shudder asunder into a thousand tiny pieces with each syllable.

Finally, Hinata could stand it no longer.

"Dangit, Naruto, turn that down!" she could barely be heard over the din. Grinning, Naruto held his hands up to his ears and pretended he did not hear her.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?!"

"I said turn that down!"

"I can't hear you!"

"Turn it down!"

"You better speak up! I'm getting old, my hearing isn't good anymore!"

"Stop being an idiot and just turn off the frigging CD player!"

Snap. All was quiet again, save for the hum of the engine as they continued driving down the country road. Cheekily, Naruto quickly switched on the dashboard again but set the volume back down to a reasonable level.

"One day, Naruto, your cold, dead body will be found on the bottom of a riverbed, weighted down by a chain and a rusty old cannonball," Hinata glowered at him. He merely pulled a face and rolled his eyes.

"Ooh, I'm so scared now."

Fifteen minutes later, Hinata parked her car at the foothill and got off; Naruto followed suit. Her mother was sitting in the dining room, clipping coupons and stashing them in a plastic bag.

"Hi mom, we're back," announced Hinata as she tossed her lunchbox onto the countertop.

"Hey kids, welcome home," her mother kept her eyes fixed on all of her potential discounts, "I'm kind of busy right now, so go do your homework or whatever."

"All right, mom, see you later," Naruto gave a quick wave as he turned to follow Hinata to her room.

Once the door was closed, they threw their bookbags onto her bed and fished out their math homework. Their teacher had assigned a very hefty measure of problems out of their book, all of which were due the following day. It would take perhaps two or three hours to finish, so all the more reason to start early, so for the first ninety minutes, they began their task in earnest.

They soon found out, however, that the longer they bent their necks and pushed around their sines and cosines, the more they began thinking about things that had nothing to do with math. Hinata glanced lazily at the clock; the second hand was moving at a snail's pace. She felt incredibly stiff, so she stretched and stood up in her chair. From where he was laying, Naruto glanced up from his work and put down his pencil.

"Man, this is getting really boring," she yawned and cracked her knuckles slowly.

"You can say that again," Naruto said with his head down in his arms.

Hinata exhaled gustily and flopped down on the bed next to him.

"Why don't we take a break?" he said lazily.

"And do what?" she replied.

"I don't know, go outside, run around, take in some fresh air."

Hinata let her head loll back over her shoulders.

"I guess so, but I don't really feel like it."

"Oh come on," Naruto was insistent, "let's go. It'll make us feel a lot better."

With a sigh, she snapped her head back up and rocked slowly forward on her back and off of her bed,

"All right, all right. Just let me get my coat."

The sea breeze played with their hair as they meandered along the beach and stared at the waves roiling over each other on the sand. They did not have any set path, but just wandered from here to there to see what might be of interest.

Eventually, their rambling led them back to their magnolia. There was that swing that they had set up to honor the finding of the tree. When they were still around eight and seven years old, they made the seat smooth and the ropes rough from many a happy run. As he thought about those times, Naruto was suddenly smitten with what he thought was a brilliant idea.

"Hey Hinata," he said.

"Yeah, what do you want?"

"When was the last time we went on that swing?"

She scratched her head in contemplation.

"Oh, let's see now. I believe it was when we were maybe eight, maybe nine years old?"

He smiled,

"Why don't we take a ride on it, just for old time's sake?"

Hinata cast an incredulous eye over the worn ropes that suspended the swing from the tree,

"Are you sure these things will support our weight? We've gotten a lot heavier since seven years ago, you know. These ropes have been left in the rain for almost a decade. They could be rotten and just about to fall apart right now."

"You just worry too much," Naruto said, "I bet it's perfectly fine. See?" He walked over to the swing and began pulling the ropes tautly. There was no sign of them fraying or splitting; the swing stayed firmly on the tree.

Patting the seat, he beckoned towards Hinata,

"Hop on."

After wedging herself firmly in, Naruto began pushing her back and forth. Hinata could feel two warm spots where his hands would press against her back every time she floated back to him.

"Wow, Naruto, you're unbelievably weak," she taunted, "even my grandmother has more strength in her when she moves the furniture around her apartment."

She heard no response, but suddenly, she found herself flying higher and higher until she was nearly parallel with the ground.

"Woah!" she was getting dizzy from swinging so far up. The ground rushed up to smack her feet, but then dashed away at the last minute to be replaced by a view of the sky every time she was thrust forward. When she went backwards, she could see Naruto's teeth flashing at her through the grin he wore.

"What's the matter?" he called to her, "feeling funny?"

With this taunt, he shoved her especially hard, and even higher she sailed. Up and up, until her feet could kick the leaves off of the branches above her. Then, without warning, when the swing reached its apex, she leapt out towards the sky, laughing and waving her four limbs.

"Catch me if you can!" she cried.

For a moment or two, Naruto simply stood there staring up at her. Then, as Hinata plummeted to the ground, his body sprung into action and tossed him forwards with his arms outstretched, where she made her safe landing. With a bodily thud and a spray of sand, they toppled and tumbled over in a tangled heap.

Naruto extricated himself and looked at his friend. Her face was smeared all over with sand. Her hair was tossed every which way from the impact of her fall; her clothes were equally as disarrayed. Still, there was something wonderful about this picture; her eyes were half-lidded, but through the gap that remained shone the brightest light he had ever seen. From her mouth burst the loveliest sound he had ever heard, though simple others might have described it as simple laughter.

Bending down, he gave her a kiss on the cheek, soft and warm on his mouth. Just under where his lips made contact, her skin blossomed rosily and she half-opened her mouth in surprise, but she soon closed it again, letting her lips curve upwards gently.

He gave his hand to her; she took it, and they both stood up. The sun, after gazing radiantly down upon this spectacle, which, although beautiful, was so insignificant compared to the rest of his domain, dipped beneath the horizon, letting twilight brush the skies with pink and green(2). Birds began flying home, fleeing darkness and its predators; their harsh, nattering cries reminded Naruto what time it was.

"Ah, I guess it's time to go," he stared at his watch.

"Eh," Hinata said, "I guess so."

They walked back to her house, but not too quickly. This gave them plenty of time to bask in each other's company. Deliberately, Naruto packed his backpack, then checked again to make sure he remembered to take everything with him, and then once more for good measure.

In the hallway, he saw Hinata's mother.

"Bye, Naruto. See you later," she said.

Just as his mouth opened to say "bye mom," he stopped himself. For a brief moment, he paused in the hallway with his lips slightly parted.

"Goodbye Hyuuga-san," he said. His tongue rolled around those unfamiliar syllables.

"Oh?" Hinata's mother arched her eyebrows, "Hyuuga-san? I haven't heard you call me that since when I first met you."

"We have to go, mom," Hinata butted in, "Neji's waiting for us at school."

"Oh, ok Hinata," her mother said. Her daughter took hold of Naruto's hand and pulled him along.

"Have a safe trip!" the mother said.

"Ok, mom, will do!" Hinata called back, and then there was the slam of the door closing, and then silence.

In her car, things were equally as quiet. Naruto and Hinata trundled peacefully along the long, country road back towards the school, saying nothing with their mouths, but still hearing what the other was saying and answering just as tacitly. He stared out of the window, observing the tips of the grass in the meadows, now silvered by brushes of moonlight. This place always was beautiful, but tonight, it had become even more wonderful to behold.

Rubber growled as it devoured small crumbs of asphalt when Hinata pulled back into the parking lot twenty minutes later. The glare from her headlights washed over Neji, who was standing patiently on the curb, waiting to be picked up.

"Hello, Naruto," he said, opening the car door.

"Hey there, Neji," was the reply as Naruto stepped out, "thanks."

"No problem."

A car horn beeped across the empty parking lot. Around the corner came the vehicle it was attached to with Minato's blonde head sticking out of the driver's window.

"Yo Naruto, it's time to go!" he waved, "Let's get a move on before I grow old and need a toupee!"

"Ok dad, coming!" he shouted back and then turned around to face Hinata. He grasped her two hands in one of his and tilted her chin up to face him.

"You knew it too, right?" he asked her.

"Yes," she replied happily.

"You agree with it, then?"

"Of course."

"That's all I needed to hear," he said, and he nuzzled his forehead against hers.

Minato's horn screeched angrily behind him.

"Naruto, I said it is Time To Go, Now!" he bellowed.

"Bye, Hinata!" Naruto scurried off, facing backwards the whole time.

"Bye, Naruto!" she called, "see you Monday!"

She gazed off until Minato's headlights were swallowed up by the dark of night. Keys went back in the ignition, and she drove back home.

"Was that…" Neji began.

"Mhm," Hinata answered him and cut him short at the same time.

That night, when she was ready to go to bed, she found something on her covers.

It was a sheet of paper with a fine texture to it, not unlike the kind found in between the leaves of a sketchbook. On it, there had been a very rudimentary drawing of a tortoise on the far right hand side of the paper plodding its way towards a coconut on the far left.

But now, there was a different picture; the tortoise on the right had been crossed out and redrawn right next to the coconut taking a small nibble out of it with the utmost expression of contentment.

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lolololololololololol turtles!

(1)my apologies to any Christopher Cross fans out there… (but seriously, I really do think that his songs kind of loop themselves, though he does have a great voice)

(2)hah, try to wrap your brains around that sentence.


	11. Chapter 11: And Meet

_Foreword: I'm so glad that this is the first fanfic I've written that's gotten over ten reviews, so please keep them coming. Anyone is fine with me. I'm sorry I keep churning out alternating lame chapters/good chapters, but I think this will be the final iteration. From here on out, it will only be single chapters released. Thank you everyone who's already reviewed for your kind words. I feel really good whenever I read them._

Chapter 11: And Meet

Only Hinata, Naruto, and Neji knew. It was a secret; something special for them to keep to themselves, like a child hiding away a favorite cache of goodies. As such, they allowed no signs of it to show at school, where everyone else went. No kissing, hugging, or even holding hands in front of their classmates: that was the unspoken rule. They knew that if anyone else were to find out, they would immediately be bombarded by a horde of well-meaning friends, wishing them congratulations, squealing their satisfaction, and generally getting in the way; not to mention the overwhelming mound of gossip that would naturally follow.

It was only after last bell rang, at Hinata's house, that they let their passions surface, and then only a very little. To anyone else, their actions towards each other would appear to be markedly reserved. Contact was restricted to holding hands, hugs, and a small peck on the cheek or occasionally on the lips. Some might even wonder if it was anything special at all, for they never said the words "I love you" to each other, or anything remotely similar.

But then, why should they say those words to each other? It was only an unnecessary reminder of their situation. Those quick kisses, the hugs, and the hand holding, were all small, but they each had packed in them an incredible amount of feeling. What two ordinary lovers could transmit with a long, affectionate mouth-on-mouth embrace, Naruto and Hinata could signal with merely a slight squeeze of the hand or a brush of their lips on each other's cheeks.

Often, they would find themselves wandering the beaches near her house. Neji would accompany them sometimes, but he would respectfully remain at least twenty paces away from them and only joined them at their behest.

Today, he was walking with them. All three of them were barefoot, letting their feet sink wonderfully into the damp sand with each step they took. From time to time, Neji would stoop down to pick up a shell and place it in a jar he carried with him. As of late, he had grown fond of sketching them and kept a large collection in his room.

As they kept on walking, Hinata could hear slight sounds coming off from the distance, amidst the crashing of the surf and the keening of the seagulls. Children laughing and yelling, while their parents sat back and occasionally called out a warning not to run too far out into the water. Soon, Naruto and Neji could hear it too.

"It's coming from behind that sand dune over there," Neji pointed.

Standing on top of the dune, they could see what was causing all of the noise. A family of four had come to relax and enjoy the ambiance of the beach. The two children, who could barely be over eight years old, were playing in the waves under the watchful eyes of their parents, who were lounging on a pair of patio chairs nearby.

"Who are they?" Naruto asked Hinata.

"I don't know, and neither does Neji," she was staring at the newcomers, "as long as we've lived here, no one besides us has ever come to this beach before."

"How did they find out about this place?" wondered Neji.

"I'm not sure," Hinata said.

"Why don't we go ask them?" Naruto suggested.

"That's kind of rude, don't you think?" she answered, "If we just walk up to them like 'hey, buddy, what are you doing on our beach, here?'"

"Ok, then do you have a better idea?" he asked.

"Let's just walk past them slowly," Neji offered this time, "that way, if they see us and become curious as to how we got here, we can easily form the basis of a conversation and have all of our questions answered."

It seemed like a good idea, so slowly, the three of them strolled along where the family played. As Neji had predicted, the adults immediately became interested and sat up a little straighter in their chairs.

"Honey, do you know who they are?" the wife asked her husband.

"Not a clue," he replied, "isn't this supposed to be a secluded beach?"

"Well, that's what we heard from the townsfolk. Maybe they're here on vacation as well."

"I guess that makes sense, though it's an odd coincidence," said the husband, and then laughed, "Oh look, the kids are starting to swarm them."

Their children, with their natural lack of inhibition, were crowded around the three friends, trying to get a good idea of these strangers. Inquisitively, the younger people tugged at their shirts and stared at their faces.

"Hiraku, Kenshin, Manami!" the father called to them, "Stop being such pests and leave them alone!"

They did not listen, so he had to get out of his chair to pull them back.

"Sorry," he said once they were all taken care of, "they're usually not like that, but I guess they were surprised to see you here. We were as well, but I guess we have a little more self-control than they do."

"Oh, it's quite alright," Hinata reassured him, "have you folks ever been around here before?"

"No, it's our first time being here. My brother moved into the town over there, so we came to visit him this year. Right now, we're on our way back to the airport, but we thought we'd just stop by here and admire the scenery."

"You like it here?" she asked.

"Yes, it's certainly very nice around here. We came here because we thought it was a secluded beach, so we didn't expect to see you guys here. Are you all on vacation as well?"

"Oh, no, me and my cousin, Neji, live around here."

"Oh really?" He seemed fascinated, "We haven't seen a house for miles out here."

"That's because we live on the very top of one of those hills over there," she gestured out behind her in the general direction her house sat.

"Ah, well that explains it. I noticed you didn't mention the third member of your party here. What's his name?"

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," he spoke for himself.

"A friend, I presume?"

"Correct."

"Pleased to meet you," the man shook Naruto's hand, "pleased to meet you all. My name is Abe Naoki, and that is my wife, Shinju."

"Hello, you three," she smiled from where she was sitting and gave them a wave.

"The ones who were bothering you just now are our children. Our eldest child, and our firstborn son, is Kenshin. He's about seven right now.

"Born only eleven months after him is Hiraku. He is six, but he will turn seven the following week.

"You have a beautiful family, Mr. Naoki," Hinata said, "do you also have a daughter?"

"I beg pardon? What makes you think that?"

"Oh, well, back when your children were surrounding us, you called out their names when you told them to leave us alone, but you also included someone else's name, like 'Manami' or something like that."

"Oh, Manami," suddenly, Naoki's countenance became a lot less friendlier than just a few moments ago; it was not hostile, but a blanket had been thrown over a fire and dimmed down the lights in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" Hinata was worried.

"Oh, no, no. It's fine" he brushed away some imaginary dust, "I'm acting like a fool, that's all. To answer your first question, Manami was our daughter. She died a year ago."

"Oh no!" Hinata instantly regretted being curious, "I'm so sorry. I had no idea…"

"Nah, nah, it's okay. I'm fine, really. We're all fine."

"It must have been terrible, trying to cope with her death," a cliché statement, no doubt, but it was the best Hinata could offer. Naoki, thankfully, did not seem to mind.

"It wasn't easy, certainly, but I managed. Well, we managed, really, me and my wonderful wife."

"She was a great help to you, I take it?"

"An invaluable companion. One day, when I was crying in the kitchen over some stupid little incident that reminded me of Manami, she came up behind me and said to me that she was dead, and all of this crying I was doing would do nothing to bring her back; so she knocked some sense into my head and told me to dry my tears, because I was making her sadder as well. Now, I don't feel half as bad when I talk about my daughter, and I can't do enough to show my thanks to Shinju for that, but I still try all I can to."(1)

"Oh, that's such a beautiful story," Hinata said (READ THE FOOTNOTE IF YOU DISAGREE).

"She's great, I'll tell you that, and…" before Naoki could go on any further, he heard his wife calling him,

"Naoki, do stop bothering those people and let them go on their own way. I say, you're even worse than our children are!"

"I'm sorry, I've got to go," he smiled again and waved them a good-bye, "coming, dear!"

Hinata, Naruto, and Neji returned his farewell, and then retreated a few meters to sit down on the dunes and watch the family from afar. Hinata began absentmindedly picking up random handfuls of sand and let the grains run between her fingers in soft, pulsating sheets. Naruto reached out and gently placed one of her hands in his own.

"They're pretty nice people," Hinata said, "I wish we could have talked to Shinju. I would've liked to know what she's like."

Naruto made no reply but to draw her in so she could lean on his shoulder. She continued speaking.

"But it's sad, though, isn't it? How their daughter died and everything? That's just so terrible, I think, to have a child die."

"Yeah, but Naoki himself said that there would be no point in grieving over it," Neji pointed out

Hinata felt Naruto's hand glide softly over her back and then nestle itself on her shoulder.

"Yeah, and Naoki doesn't seem too sad about it now," he said.

"I guess so", Hinata nestled herself into the crook of Naruto's arm. She turned over in her head how wonderful she thought it was that Abe Naoki had such a good wife to him.

"Exactly," said Naruto, who knew exactly what she was thinking. He squeezed her gently and gave her a kiss.(2)

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(1) I just can't think of a better one… please forgive me

(2) hyuk hyuk, like I always say, the more cheese, the better!


	12. Chapter 12: The Rest is History

_Foreword: Oh boy oh boy oh boy! This is one of my favorite chapters, I just had so much fun writing it, and you'll see why… I wish I could write ten more like this, but then I won't have much of a story left, would I? Ah well. Hope you'll like reading it as much as I liked making it._

They never saw Abe Naoki or his family after that day, but they never forgot his story. Theirs was a perfect family in Hinata and Naruto's eyes, one that they wished to have as well, but without the dead daughter, of course.

So for three more years, they cultivated and nurtured their bonds, hoping that one day, they would be able to create such a perfect couple. Driven by their desires, Hinata and Naruto enrolled at the same college in town, near to their homes, while Neji decided to study in America. He still kept in touch with them from time to time, but work and studies soon filled up their desks and hard drives and left little room for letters or emails.

One day, however, as Naruto was browsing his mail, he found a message from Neji, written only a day ago.

" Hey Naruto," it addressed, "it's been quite a while since we've last talked, hasn't it? You may be glad to know that I am coming back to see you guys this Friday; it'll be the first time we'll have to see each other ever since I came here. I'll be arriving at the airport in town at 10:00 at night, gate 50E. I would really like to see you there, so email me back if you'll be coming to pick me up. We'll take a cab.

--Neji--

PS- don't tell Hinata that I'm coming; I want this to be a surprise for her."

Naruto grinned and immediately closed the message window. Whirling around in his chair, he consulted the calendar that sat below his monitor. Today was Wednesday, so in two more days, he and Hinata would be seeing Neji again.

During those two days, he could barely keep the excitement from bursting out of him. It was even harder to keep his secret from Hinata, who, during their courtship, had become excellent detecting the slightest things that were different with him.

"What are you hiding from me?" she kept asking him.

"You'll see," would be his only answer, to which she would respond with,

"Come on, you can trust me. You know you can trust me."

"Oh, I know I can, but this isn't a question of trust. I'm telling you, you'll see, when the time is right."

Finally, Friday had come. Hinata woke up. Since the university was relatively close to her house, she did not see the need to rent a dormitory and so stayed at home when she did not have classes. Admittedly, it was rather lonely with only her and her mother, but Naruto's frequent visits alleviated that feeling effectively.

She peered out of her window; hazy grey clouds were creeping over the sky, smothering the face of the sun until the entire scene was awash in varying subdued tones of grayish color. Suddenly, she began hearing little ticks as tiny droplets of water sprung onto her windows and left spattered trails behind them. At first, they were few and scattered, but steadily, they gained speed and regularity until the entire house was thrumming with the beat of raindrops hitting its roof and its walls.

The clock buzzed irately behind her. Turning around, she could see 7:00 AM glaring at her with bright red LEDs. Hurriedly, she threw on some clothes, grabbed her books, gave her mom a quick kiss on the cheek on her way out of the door, and then leapt into her car as fast as she could before too much rain could fall on her. After she reached campus, she could see Naruto waiting under a tree for her.

"Hey there," she said once she got out of the car.

"Hey dude," he replied, "did you notice it's raining?"

"Yep, I sure did," she said.

"Then here's an umbrella," he said as he unfolded it over their heads and gallantly offered her an arm, "let's walk."

"So," Hinata said as their shoes scuffed along the wet pavement, "do you have any plans tonight?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." As he said this, he noticed Hinata become slightly crestfallen at the reply, "Is something the matter with that?"

"No," she said, "it's just that I was hoping we could have movie night again today."

Movie night was just what it sounded like, but with a special twist; they would only search for the lamest, shoddiest, and most insipid films ever made and watch those(1).

"Movie night will have to be moved to next week, because I'm having a guest over tonight," he said.

"Oh fine," she relented and took a quick look to a door on her right.

"This is where I get off," she said, "I'll see you later… tomorrow?"

"Oh no," he answered, smiling, "I'll see you later tonight."

"Wait, what?" Hinata was confused, "I thought you said you had a guest coming over?"

"Yes, I do, but I'm bringing him over to visit you."

"What makes you think—"

"Trust me, you'll be more than happy to see him," with a smile and a wave, he departed.

For the entire day, Hinata could barely concentrate on her studies, as she kept puzzling over who this visitor could be. Once her classes were over, she drove home slowly, still trying to figure out who Naruto was talking about. When she pulled up to her house, it was still raining, so she blazed her way quickly up the hillside.

"Hello, Hinata. Welcome back," her mother called from the living room.

"Hey mom," she went over to the refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat, "are we expecting company today?"

Her mother's slightly confused face appeared from behind the couch.

"No, I don't believe so, why?"

"Naruto says he's bringing someone over tonight, but he won't say who."

"Really now? I cannot recall arranging any meetings with anyone for today. Very strange."

"Do you mind at all, mom?"

"Oh no, of course not. A friend of Naruto's is a friend of ours, do you agree?"

Hinata smiled, "yeah, sure mom."

For the rest of the day, Hinata stayed shut up mostly in her room poring over her textbooks and scribbling all over her notes. Presently, she began to feel her neck and shoulders become incredibly cramped, so she took a break and stretched, yawning and blinking stupidly at her clock.

"Woah, it's already 10:45" she thought, "how late at night does Naruto plan to bring his visitor?"

Outside of her window, the sky was a vast expanse of solid black sheet, as the stars were still obscured by the storm clouds. Still, it rained, tapping and clicking incessantly like a persistent child annoying a tank full of fish.

Then, she heard someone knocking on her door. It was an unfamiliar sound, since their only regular visitor, Naruto, was allowed to waltz in through the front whenever he felt like it.

"I've got it!" she called to her mother.

Tentatively, she turned the handle to open the door just ajar and peered out through the crack. A police officer, his cap still dripping and shining slick from the rain, stood there with his arms crossed in front of him. The porch light shone starkly upon his face, deepening the crags on his already rough features. Hinata swung the door wide open.

"Hello," the officer said, "are you related to a Mr. Hyuuga Neji?"

Hinata's heart sank, "yes, officer," she said quietly, "did he do something wrong?"

"No, he didn't do anything wrong, but I need to speak with his aunt."

While Hinata had been talking with the officer, her mother had sidled up quietly next to her. Now, she took her moment to speak,

"That would be me, officer."

"Then could you step out here so we may talk for a minute? Or do you wish to stay inside, since it's raining right now?"

"I'll go outside with you."

She went out of the door and closed it behind her.

"I'll only be a minute," she mouthed to Hinata, but her face was pale and her lips were trembling.

For what seemed like the longest time, they stayed behind that door; muted tones leaked through from time to time, but Hinata could not make out what they were talking about. It took all of her will power not to eavesdrop, as she wanted to know so dreadfully what the police had to do with her cousin.

A broken cry pierced the muffled door and rang loud and shrill in Hinata's ears.

"Oh my god!" it was her mother. There were some more smeared murmurs as the policeman tried to console her, but she kept crying,

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!" then weeping could be heard. The policeman said a few more words to her, and then Hinata could hear her mother saying,

"Yes, yes, we'll come," her speech was shattered into many parts by sobbing.

The door flew open violently. In snaked her mother's hand, which grabbed Hinata forcefully and yanked her along down the hillside. Hinata was fully bewildered, and terribly frightened as well.

"Mom, what's wrong, mom?" she kept asking, but she received no answer, only smothered expressions of terrible devastation.

She could see the officer's squad car, slick and shiny like his hat, waiting for them at the bottom of the hill. He opened the doors for them, and they stepped inside. Making sure they both had their seatbelts fastened, he drove off toward the town. Hinata tried once more to figure out what was going on.

"Officer?" her voice trembled, "Officer? What's happening, officer?" but her voice was so timid and weak, she could not be heard over her mother's cries and the hum of the car engine, so she gave up and sat pensively, fists clenched in her lap, knuckles blanched in fear and anxiety.

After riding for about half an hour, she could see they were drawing near the airport. Up ahead on the road, the cold, bright lights of a squad of police cars and ambulances shimmered in the brisk night air.

Before the car could make a full stop on the curb, Hinata had already opened the door and was sprinting towards the huddled mass of emergency technicians who were running back and forth very efficiently, very purposefully. A considerable crowd of onlookers had formed, and the policemen had to link their arms to drive it back.

Then she saw him. A tousled mess of blond hair perched on top of a dejected lump of human flesh that had its faced buried in its hands. Blood was lashed against his shirt, still as brightly red as the lights on the ambulances. In a flash, she was by his side; he was shaking violently, but he was not crying.

"Naruto," Hinata's voice was not her own today, "what happened? Why are there so many paramedics? Who's hurt?"

She could only hear garbled words as Naruto pitifully tried to form some semblance of a response.

"Naruto. Tell me, please. Who's hurt? Who's hurt?" There was nothing left in her heart but fear and terror that slowly worked together to tear her soul asunder; her voice split, and her throat started to close at inopportune times.

With a trembling finger, Naruto pointed five meters down the road. Slowly, fearfully, she turned and looked.

Someone's body, but it was shrouded so no one else would see whatever gruesome thing had happened to it. In some places, blood was leaking through, painting a horrid picture. At first, she had no idea who it was, but then she saw long, black tresses flowing out from under the sheet. One single hand, palm face-up, lay limply to the right of the main body. Its fingernails were cracked, and blood had tracked a path down its hand and halfway across its arm before dripping off onto the asphalt, still shining from the rain.

With a weak sound, she stumbled towards the corpse and stretched out an arm to whisk the cover away.

"Kid, what are you doing!?" voices started yelling behind her, but she didn't care. She kept stretching and stretching until she could feel hands on the back of her shirt, dragging her away. She made no effort to resist, but was pulled away from Neji's lifeless vessel with her arm still extended dumbly towards it.

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Hmm… I seem to like killing characters rather than romancing them. Whatever, change of plans, I gues

(1)Yes, it is a nod to MST3K


	13. Chapter 13: Ripped Into Shreds

_4word: aight, I said I would not post double chapters no more (zomg, a double negative!), and this time is no exception. It may seem like two chapters, but it's really just one split into two parts. I just didn't think that they belonged together, so I decided to separate them. As a result, they will seem a lot shorter to you._

Chapter 13: Ripped Into Shreds

What had happened right after that was all a confused blur of people shouting, running, and then talking gently to her face. At the end, she found herself thrown on top of a chair in a hospital waiting room with that one police officer standing in front of her telling her what had happened:

Naruto, in compliance with Neji's requests, had successfully kept the information about Neji's arrival as secretly as possible, and was at gate 50E at the exact time stated in the email. After a few words of greeting between the two, Naruto and Neji headed out to catch their taxi and go surprise Hinata.

At the same time, a man was driving on his way home, especially tired after dealing with rowdy colleagues all afternoon. There was nothing he was looking forward to more than a relaxing beer on his easy chair and an early bedtime, so that was why he was particularly irritated when he found himself stuck behind a slow, elderly driver. Not wanting to be held up too long, he decided to swerve around this nuisance and darted ahead. It was too late that he saw a startled college student with blonde hair and blue eyes staring straight into his headlights. Frantically, he tried braking, but the heavy rain that day had left a thin film of water upon the road, making his car hydroplane out of control. Impact was inevitable.

Naruto could only remember seeing two very bright lights and then feeling a sudden impact on his shoulder.

There was a sickening crunch, a squeal of tires, and then Neji's body somersaulting bizarrely through the air, a macabre Catherine wheel(1) spewing blood instead of sparks. Still too dazed to know what was happening, Naruto simply watched the scene play in front of him, strangely mesmerized by this wild action.

Smack. Neji's journey ended with an unceremonious slap onto the asphalt. Naruto had to turn his head away; Neji's skull had been shattered on impact, and now his face was grossly misshapen.

It was only a matter of minutes until the herds of rubberneckers began their eventual migration to the scene of the disaster before the paramedics arrived. Immediately, they knew someone was dead, so after a few perfunctory diagnostic checks, a blanket was brought out and thrown over the body until something could be done with it. In the meanwhile, the police controlled the crowds and Naruto was left to collapse on the curb in a small pile. It was just then that Hinata arrived and witnessed the aftermath of events recently transpired.

The policeman had finished telling his story and left, leaving her to sit there, staring emptily at nothing at all.

She remained in that disconnected state for over two months. College work piled up, neglected, on her desk. Phone calls from friends and family cluttered her voice message box. Letters filled the mailbox until it would burst if one more slip of paper were forced into its bloated belly. Her mother, too old to withstand the waves of sadness that crashed against her already weak foundations, died only a week later. She was interred next to Neji in the same ceremony, which Hinata did not attend.

Naruto had also immunized himself against the flow of the world around him. Every moment he was alive, he felt filthier and filthier; Neji was dead, he was alive, and whose fault was it? He could easily answer that himself:

It was him, Naruto, of course. By all circumstances, it should have been him thrown across the road, head distorted, limbs contorted. His own carelessness entailed such an end, but the world had different plans for him. It thrust Neji into his place, forfeiting his life for Naruto's own. Every step he took now with the feet still attached to his still unjustly living body only served to remind him that it was he, Naruto, he alone, who was responsible for the passing of Hyuuga Neji. The filth just piled upon him and his soul, bogging him down and suffocating him mercilessly.

So burdened, it was a desperate Naruto standing on Hinata's doorstep on an otherwise beautiful day, seeking some way to cleanse his blighted heart. The longer he stared at her door, the bigger it seemed to grow, until it encompassed nearly his entire field of vision. Tentatively, he rapped his knuckles on its cold, metal frame.

There was no reply from within. He did not hear a sound save for the wind murmuring reproachfully in his ears.

He knocked again, louder this time, but still, there was the same lack of a response. Not even the seabirds were there to break the silence.

For a third time, he made the house resound with the sound of his hand on the door; Hinata would surely have heard it, she should have heard it.

And for the third time, the house stood there, quietly spurning his offending presence from its front doorstep.

Naruto stumbled down the hillside and sat by the road, his head in his hands. His apologies, broken and useless now, flopped their way out of his mouth and fell in the dust, where they lay gasping for a few seconds before dying.

Hinata neither needed nor wanted him any longer, this much was all too clear to him, and the more he told himself that and believed it, so also did he begin to despise himself. What was he thinking? That he could simply waltz up to Hinata's house and be forgiven for killing Neji?

It was here that Naruto saw one way that he could save at least one scrap of Neji's dignity. There would be no defiling of his surviving cousin through Naruto's loathsome flesh. He moved away from the hill and boarded the bus home. For the Hyuugas' protection, or so he believed, he severed all ties between him and her and moved away, where Hinata stood no chance of being contaminated. In this matter, he hoped to keep the remaining Hyuuga unsullied and unscarred by his lecherous hand.

But fate had a different plan, and she twisted Naruto's noble intentions into a hideously misshapen beast that gorged itself on his and Hinata's agony.

"What do you mean?" her voice trembled, dislodged by this new, frightening development.

"I'm sorry, dear," said the excessively official voice at the other end of the phone, "but he's taken himself off the enrollment list and moved to Tokyo. He gave no reason why."

"You can't be serious about this," twin harpies of anger and sadness slithered into her body, ravaging all they could lay their cruel hands on; tears dripped down her face like Neji's blood on his dented visage. She dropped the phone onto the floor and collapsed right next to it.

"Hello?" the secretary's tinny voice buzzed through the earpiece, "Hello? Is anyone there?".

She made no move to pick it back up, but left it there and squeezed herself into a tight ball, eyes closed, her breath leaking out in short spurts as she wept silently. Terrible things were happening on top of those that had already happened. In her limply clenched fist, she held Naruto's farewell letter and cursed herself for being out making funeral arrangements(2) that day he had visited. A thousand ravenous wolves reddened their teeth as they tore her heart and her concentration to shreds(3). She was alone now; Neji, her mother, and Naruto: they were all dead(4).

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(1) It's like a type of firecracker

(2) She was making funeral arrangements, but she did not go to the funeral. I kind of skip around a little bit chronologically.

(3) A thousand nations of the Persian Empire descend upon you!

(4) well of course, Naruto's still alive. He just is, you know, dead to her (laym)


	14. Chapter 14: And Buried

_I really have not thanked those who have reviewed this story enough. My heartfelt gratitude goes towards you all. I feel like a really important person whenever I read what you have to say, so thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you._

Chapter 14: And Buried

The world, paying no attention to the woes and agonies of two people, went on with impunity, eventually forcing Hinata to join its flow again, which she resisted the entire way. She went to her college and signed herself off of the enrollment list as well. Three days later, she drove her car to a dealer, sold it right there, and took the last bus ride she would ever take back to her home. There, she sealed off her links to the outside world and crafted her own protective bubble. For food, she could keep her small vegetable garden and take whatever she wished from there. Everything else she essentially needed, she already had.

Once her basic necessities had been taken care of, she started cleaning the house. Her mother's room was a relatively easy task, as there never was much in it. All she took from it were her clothes and the covers from the bed along with the pillows. Neji's room, however, was much more resistant. Adorning his walls were all those pictures he ever drew; turtles, seagulls, lunchboxes, crabs, skyscrapers, and coconuts. Nostalgia threatened to drown her again, and she nearly lost her composure in the room. Breathing heavily, she leant on the wall and wiped her eyes before starting her task.

Those pictures came off first. Next were the seashell collections that lined every shelf of his room. With a clatter, they all tumbled miserably into her bag. She spent the whole day erasing Neji's imprint in this way until there was nothing left but his desk, his dresser, and his bed.

Taking a break, she stepped back to survey her work. Nothing had been left overlooked. Everything that could have been removed was removed. Her house was now completely safe from memory.

Yet there was one nagging feeling that would gnaw at the back of her mind. She boiled and bubbled like a hive full of ants on the trail for a meal. Something was still there, but she did not know quite what. It was something she needed to get rid of, like Neji and her mother, but it would not yield a name.

The feeling persisted for the entire day. Sometimes, she could feel the word resting tantalizingly upon her lips, only to have it slip away just as she was about to say it. Other times, she would almost forget completely about it; but she never did drive it totally from her mind, so it kept following her every hour.

Eventually, seeking refuge against her restless mind, she went outside to roam the beaches. Though it was a warm night, she still wore a sweater to protect herself from the sea breeze blowing in strong and fast. Her hair billowed and swirled around her as she took small, steady, slow steps in the sand.

She walked until the sun went down and kept on walking until Hinata found herself standing on top of her special hill, the one with the magnolia. There, hanging from the lowest branch, was the swing, swaying gently with the wind. Having nothing better to do at the moment, she sat on it and began to idly kick her heels back and forth. The feeling suddenly stormed her by force again, nearly overtaking her senses. Of its own accord, her tongue started to struggle and probe her teeth as it tried desperately to identify her emotions, but it was not until a swift gust of wind caught her by surprise and knocked her off the swing, launching her headfirst towards the ground.

With a bodily thud and a spray of sand, she toppled and tumbled over in a heap. As she lay there, the feeling continued to grow stronger until it encompassed all of her senses and assumed specific forms for each and every one of them: She could hear her laughter when Naruto pushed her on the swing; she could smell the leaves and the buds of the magnolia in springtime; she could see the brightness of the sun coruscating off of all those brilliant drops of water that leapt from the crashing waves whenever she went out to play on the beach; she could feel Naruto's warm body pressed close to hers when they hugged; and she could taste his lips whenever he grabbed her up in his arms and lowered her down to kiss her.

She picked her head up out of the sand, crying, but the smile on her face pierced through all the gritty dirt and grimy tear tracks that marred its surface. It was a happy smile, even peaceful, the kind of which she had not even hoped to have ever again. Her wound with Neji was still deep; her mother's death had made it even worse, but she could erase their images; she had to, or else the pain they left behind would have killed her.

Because Naruto, he was still alive, she realized, and she loved it. She still loved him; it was that feeling that had resided so obstinately within her mind all day. His absence still pained her, but she could also learn to fill herself with the love he had lavished upon her and dull the ache a small amount.

Now thoroughly tired, she went back inside and fell asleep immediately. The next morning, she went outside, took the swing down, and put it in her room.


	15. Chapter 15: Recovered

_Foreward: I'm going to summer camp, so this is the last update that any of you will see for about a month. Mah sorry, but I better see like a bajillion reviews when I get back. Pleeeaassee??_

Chapter 15: Recovered

Years passed. Hinata began to learn to live alone and did so moderately well. She began to think she liked being all by herself up on top of this quaint little hill overlooking the sea. The air was nice, and the view was spectacular. There were no cantankerous neighbors to battle nerves with, and her garden kept her occupied for most of the day.

Even so, there would also be times when she would wonder what Naruto was doing, and then, most importantly, what she would do if he were here.

On another quiet day, she was sitting at her table going through her mail so she could pay off the bills. Like normal, she had two piles of paper on the table right now: one for junk mail, and the other for more important mail.

Today, however, she found an envelope that did not belong in either category. This certainly was strange. Thinking nothing much of it, she lay it to the side to be looked at later.

After signing off the last check and carefully recalculating how much money she had left, she shoved all of her completed bills to the side along with the junk mail and glanced it her new envelope. With a flick of the wrist, she opened it up and let its contents slide out onto the table, and then paused to allow Hinata to look at something very interesting.

Printed on the enclosed letter in seemingly innocuous script was the name Uzumaki Naruto. With happily surprised speed, she read the letter quickly.

"Hinata,

"God knows how long it's been since I've written, or even spoken to you.

"But I just needed to talk to you again; I need to tell you so many things…."

As Naruto's masculine scrawl rambled on, Hinata did learn all those things he wished to tell her, from how he had relocated to a city all the way across Japan, to how he met his current wife, Sato Saeko, at a nondescript general store in the downtown area, how they got married, and finally, how he was coming back to Hinata's city to pick up a few things the supplier company he worked for wanted.

"I still want to see you again," it said, "and if you feel the same, I will be sitting at the foothill by noon two days from now."

Those two days passed never too quickly for Hinata. Many times, while waiting, she caught herself glancing downhill to see if maybe Naruto had decided to come early. But at last, the time came. The zenithal sun peered down to see her running down the hill to find Naruto.

And sure enough, it really was him. His back was turned towards the house, as he was sitting right next to the road. The sun reflected off of his hair, making it all the more golden, while the wind played with it, letting it become neat or disarrayed when it pleased. Hearing Hinata's footfalls in the grass behind him, he turned around and quickly stood up.

"Hinata…" he spoke so softly, so gently; quite unlike his older, rowdier self, "… you really do want to see me again? Even after…."

Just as she was about to interrupt him with a running hug, she just as quickly arrested herself. Time came in between them and threw small, hard stones at her: he was married, he lived far away, they hadn't even spoken to each other for years. What on earth could she be thinking?

So, feeling like an idiot, she offered him her hand. When he took it and shook it slowly, she could see his wedding band glinting arrogantly on his finger and feel it searing itself coldly into her skin.

"Of course, Naruto, I wanted to see you again," she said, doing her best to keep tears from springing to her eyes or sniffing, "that's all in the past."

Awful silence followed. The grass continued to rustle around them, and a group of plovers clamored noisily in the background.

"I wanted to see you too…" he said slowly, "for such a long time, I wanted to see you."

"Your wife," she said just as painfully. Those words were almost sacrilegious, coming from her mouth, "how is she?"

"She's doing fine, I guess. She seems happy enough, anyways."

The wind picked up, throwing small grains of sand in their eyes and ears. Shielding her face, Hinata seized the moment;

"Well, come inside. I don't think there's any need to stay out here anymore."

Up the hill and into her house they went and sat down at her kitchen table. Hinata set out two glasses of water and a small bowl of strawberries she had just picked from her garden.

"It's not much," she apologized, "it's not a whole lot."

"No, no, it's fine," he reassured her; with all the airs of a polite houseguest.

She pulled out a chair and sat herself down.

"So, Naruto," she said, "tell me more. How have you been all this time?"

"I suppose I've been doing well," he answered impassively, "my employer is reasonable, I get paid a decent amount; the work is steady."

"Did you ever get to finish college?"

"No, I never did, or I'd probably have a better job than working at a supplier company." He smacked at a mosquito that had alighted on his arm.

"What's it like where you live now?"

But he did not answer that question. He had one of his own to ask.

"Hinata," he said, "did you really want to see me again?"

A little startled by the abrupt change in subject matter, she muttered an incoherent "yes" that was neither statement nor question; it did not sound sincere at all.

"Oh, I see," he said, face crestfallen.

At that point, Hinata nearly burst. She could barely stand standing so detached from him when he was mere feet away, within arm's length, even. Every cell in her body screamed at her to make him feel better, kiss him, hug him, do something!

She nearly did; she came very, very close when her fingers twitched and her arms moved a little closer to him, but that strange, irrational force in her called restraint jerked them back to her side of the table.

"Hinata," Naruto spoke again. His voice grew wilder and more uncertain the longer he talked, "I want you to know, no matter how pathetically inadequate this sounds, that I'm sorry for killing Neji. I'm sorry for killing your mother. I moved away because of that, I was so sorry. How could I say I loved you after that? I thought you'd hate me, as I hated myself for taking them away from you, so I married Saeko, both to punish myself and also as an effort to distract me from my feelings for you, because I still love you, Hinata, I always did."

His face was buried in his arms, so Hinata could not tell whether or not he was crying, but his voice was chopped up into tiny pieces and scattered into the room.

"But I couldn't take it anymore. I missed you too much," he continued, shoulders shaking, "it's pathetic, even despicable, I know, but I needed to see you just one more time, even if it's just to have you yell at me to get away from you or tell me how much you hate me from Neji's…"

"Stop!" Hinata could bear it no longer. In her great haste, she knocked over her chair and dashed over to Naruto's side of the table. There, she picked up his head out of his arms and placed it in her own. Those tears she had harbored suddenly surged forward and cascaded down her cheeks, despite her best efforts.

"How could you think I'd do that?" she cried, "that I would hate you after Neji died, or my mother died? Has your opinion of me fallen so much? Ever since you've left, I've always wanted to hold you again, and when I had the chance twenty minutes ago, when I first saw you, I couldn't, because you were married. Now, I can't care any less who your wife is. I still love you, Naruto; I can't bear for you to think that I hate you and see you so miserable over it."

Nestled in between her arms, she could feel Naruto sag slightly, but he was still a little tense.

"But what about Neji?" he quavered, " and your mother. How could I…?"

"Do you think I care about them anymore?" she interrupted bluntly, "of course I loved them when they were alive, and mourned them when they were dead, but I didn't—I refused—to keep on weeping when their bodies were three-days cold in the grave. They were dead, so it didn't matter to me who killed them. You were the only one left of the ones I cherished, but then you slipped away from me, so all I could do was bury the other two and wonder and dream after you."

She turned his head up to face hers, and despite the small rivulets running down her cheeks, she smiled at him.

"Hinata," he said disjointedly, "I just… I don't know what I was thinking. When Neji died, and then your mother, I couldn't think straight. I was standing in the road, and that car should have killed me, but it killed Neji instead. I thought if I married someone else, I could right whatever wrongs I committed that night, so I would be miserable in my marriage without you to compensate for your agony."

He wiped his eyes, "but it didn't work, or rather, it worked too well. Even I thought I needed some happiness in my life, so that's why I wrote you that letter and shoved myself onto your lawn today, and that's also why I feel so good right now, so much better than I've felt in years."

"Naruto, I used to call you an idiot in jest, when we could openly admit we were in love, and I have valid reason to call you one for what you've been doing these past few years, but that doesn't mean I've loved you any less. I've always felt the same, if not more strongly about you for all this time, and that is something I will not stop."

She stroked his cheek and bent her head closer to his.

"Close your eyes, Naruto," she said, and he did. Her lips then closed on his as she kissed him as passionately as all of those separated years had wanted to. Wracked for so long by misery and sorrow, Naruto finally allowed himself this small taste of the wonderful freedom that he had recklessly denied himself.

They would have liked to remain that way until their deaths, but their bodies pulled them apart from each other to breathe. Naruto sat panting heavily.

"I'm married," he protested feebly, but his heart of hearts would not allow him to believe that, at least not for now. Sensing this, Hinata pulled him in again, more fiercely than before, and he did not object.

_Afternote: This chapter took about a whole month to write, but it was completed mostly in one day. I had writer's block all that time, and it probably shows through this part of the story. I think I must have rewritten this chapter like three times or something. Oh well. All I want to say is that I am GLAD this is over._


	16. Chapter 16: Child After My Heart

A special thank you goes to Susamajii for pointing out something that might have confused/horrified some of you. I have fixed that little error, and so I hope it reads all the better for you.

_Foreword to this chapter: up to now, you people may have noticed that I have not been very… even when dealing with the scale of time. For example, in this chapter, you may be wondering why I'd take a few pages worth of words for one conversation while leaving only a paragraph for long events, such as Hinata's pregnancy or the development of friendships and bonds between Naruto and Hinata. To be frank, who gives a flying crap about all that stuff that happens in between? I just want to highlight specific and important events in these peoples' lives, not give a day-to-day account of what's happening. That's just boring._

_Foreword(Again): there weren't a billion reviews when I came back, but 22 was more than I was hoping for, so what the hey. Read this chapter and enjoy. If you can't, then leave please._

_Oh yeah, before I forget: review review ReViEw rEvIeW REVIEW :D_

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Chapter 16: Child After My Heart

Something was afoot at the Uzumaki house, but whether it was rotten or benignant, Saeko could not say. Her husband had been increasingly detached from her, more than he had ever been ever since they were married. A far-away look popped up in his eyes frequently, more often than not in the middle of a conversation.

Yet even with this growing remoteness from each other, Naruto seemed to be the better off for it. He smiled more, and a strange, yet wonderful light glimmered through his eyes, one that she had never seen before. She was torn on whether or not to keep the close, yet morose Naruto or to cast that image away and take the more isolated and happier one in its stead.

At last, she opted for the former. She still did love him and did her best to garner some semblance of the feeling from her husband as well, but despite her best efforts, he kept on drifting farther and farther away from her as his grin grew broader and his eyes grew lighter. There were times when the most appropriate way to describe the relationship between them was not marriage, but rather more like roommates or fellow boarders.

"Naruto?" she asked one day while he was busily pushing some papers around in his office. She had walked in holding a cup of coffee she had brewed for him.

"Mhm?" he replied; his head was obscured by a tall stack of important-looking documents.

"Do you have anything planned for today?" she asked and glanced at the calendar. It was the fifteenth of March(1).

He sat down and leafed through a folder nearly bursting with files,

"Oh no, not really, I suppose," he answered distractedly.

Saeko stood there, clutching the coffee cup to her chest. The steam curled around her nose and into her eyes, stinging them and making them water.

"Oh," she said, "alright," and placed the cup right next to him.

"Oh, thanks," he said, and smiled at her.

"You're welcome," Saeko left the room.

Back in the kitchen, she looked at the day planner she kept next to the refrigerator. Tracing with her finger, she located the fifteenth of March and read what was written on it with red ink:

"March 15, 1996. My 27th birthday.(1)"

Such occurrences were hardly rare in the Uzumaki household, so Saeko brushed this one aside, just as she had so many times already. It was nothing, right? He was just distracted by his work, that was all. There was nothing significant in forgetting a birthday, the day his wife came into existence.

A few weeks later, he left again on one of those mysterious errands he had so often these days. She bid him a farewell like she always did and watched as his car puttered off to his meeting place. That evening, he came back, but this time, something was off. His head, instead of held erect and happy, was bent so that his eyes saw no further than the tips of his feet, and the spring in his step had been reduced to a melancholy plod. Whatever she said to try to soothe him merely bounced off of his ears; they had long been sealed against her affections.

Dinnertime came around, and they began eating. Chopsticks and spoons clinked coldly against other as they ferried food from the plates into their mouths. Today's seemed like another silent meal together.

Suddenly, however, Saeko heard a loud clank and looked up to see Naruto had set down his cutlery and was staring right at her. A little surprised and a little afraid, she set down her silverware as well. His face was not menacing, but there was something troubling about it.

"Saeko," he said slowly, as if he were thinking that there was a better way to say that name.

"Yes?"

"We've been married for almost… six years now?"

"Yes, I think so."

He sighed and looked at the tablecloth; it was a small, mournful sigh.

"Saeko, I think it's time that we have a child. I want to, at least…" his voice trailed off. Saeko's heart raced. A child? What on earth? Out of all of those six years of marriage together, she could barely name five instances when he had shown some form of strong affection to her, and now all of a sudden he wanted a baby?

"A-a child…" she stammered; half unconscious by surprise, and the other half intoxicated by a giddy happiness, she could barely form sentences.

"But it's not what you think, Saeko," he said in a very strange tone. It sounded almost miserable, as if he would be ashamed that Saeko would be the bearer of his child. This immediately snapped her out of her confused euphoria.

"Then what is it?" she asked dazedly. Just too much was going on for either her brain or heart to cope with.

He pushed his hands under the table and stared hard at his plate.

"You know those meetings I've been going to so often lately?" he started.

"Yes," she answered a little uneasily.

"I've never told you what those meetings were about."

She did not even answer this time. Carefully, he continued.

"Don't you remember that time I told you about an old friend named Hinata?"

She remembered. They were sitting on their front porch, about two weeks after they had married when Saeko had found a picture of Hinata in the big pile of photos they had spread out before themselves.

"Yes, I do remember."

"Well, she and I have had a long history together…"

For about the next hour and a half, Naruto let all out; Saeko learned everything. Every secret he had harbored in their marriage was now let out to dry in the sun for the world to see. His seemingly constant contemplativeness and broodiness became instantly explainable. Those frequent "business meetings" were stripped of their guises and cast naked into the open for Saeko to see. So many things she knew now, most of them were things she had always wanted to know, along with others that she did not:

He had met Hinata again, a long while ago, after being apart from her for such an agonizing length of time. Their reunion, though passionate, had to be brief, and so he left.

Still, Naruto's heart would not stay still, and only a week later, it dragged him back to her hill and up to her house, where she awaited with open arms and heart. Again, he could not stay indefinitely, so he had to return to Saeko, but he was soon back to Hinata's house just another week after that.

For months to come, they had met in this clandestine fashion, but these visits cast light on another problem. Hinata found the smaller and smaller moments without _him_ reciprocally became more and more unbearable. She needed something to fill in those gaps when he would not be there, something that would be a lot, if not exactly, like him. A cotton swab applied to a smarting wound before the bandage is put on.

She needed a child; particularly, his child. Saeko gasped when she heard this and then shuddered as bits and pieces of the world she had lived in for the past six years were suddenly ripped from her and thrown heedlessly away for others to enjoy.

And then she heard how Hinata's desire for a child, spawned from the incredible loneliness she felt when Naruto was away, had led her to successfully persuade him to her bed where she conceived. The point of no return had been breached, and now Saeko was now dragged in with them to pick up the pieces.

"… and that's what happened," Naruto drew his fantastic nightmare to a close. He looked at Saeko with the strongest expressions of pity, sorrow, and shame imaginable. He showed his tears to her.

"I'm so sorry, Saeko, I never wanted to destroy you like this. You are such a good person, much better than I ever was or ever will be. Please, please, please, forgive me."

As she opened her mouth to soothe him and tell him it was all right, she stopped. Why did he need the comforting? Wasn't she the one who had been wronged? Naruto may be her husband in the sense of the law, but she could not really see how that applied to her anymore. She became lost in her own thoughts as she went over everything that had been revealed today: The only reason he married her was because he could never love her. That revelation had scarred her deeply and built up a humongous reservoir of resent against her husband. The love she had felt for him was fast ebbing away and being replaced by odious malcontent and bitter sadness.

"What does it matter to me anymore?" she asked in a very small voice. Naruto could not say anything in reply. The answer was just too obvious.

"Your heart has always lain with Hinata," she continued, "but you never told me that. You were stringing me on the entire way until today. I thought if I loved you enough, you could do the same for me."

She let herself cry for a few seconds, it felt good: to do something after having to endure that horrible ordeal. That horrible, horrible thing her husband had done against her, but in due time, she dried her eyes and straightened her back.

"When's the baby due?" she asked.

"Ten months," he replied.

"Then I want you to do just this, Naruto," she said softly, very softly.

"What is it? I'll do whatever you say," he promised.

"When you go to her house to see the baby being born, which I no doubt you will, take me with you. I want to be present at the birth and I want to name the baby. Okay?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Also, if you do this shit ever again, the same thing applies for all subsequent babies that come from her. I will name every single child you have. I also want them all to live with us for a while, or at least until the eldest is about ten years old, then we can think about letting them actually live with Hinata."

"You have my word, Saeko, thank you, thank you."

They never spoke kindly to each other ever again after that.

The next day, he returned to Hinata's house and relayed to her Saeko's conditions.

"She gets to keep the children for ten years?" she asked.

"Yes. Until the oldest is ten years old, she said," he answered. She was quiet for a moment.

"Well, she is your wife, after all," she stroked an imaginary pet on the table and looked off to the side. Naruto knew this seemingly unaffected gesture was not out of anger towards Saeko's demands, but the sadness for calling another woman Naruto's wife.

The months dragged on. Each time a new one began, Hinata's belly grew a little bit bigger until she had almost doubled her girth. Whenever Naruto visited, she would playfully ask him to give it a little poke so that they could feel what they had both accomplished.

"I think it's going to come any day now," she said a little woozily. The child she bore was very restless and had been stirring inside of her incessantly.

Slightly alarmed at that statement, Naruto started staying much longer every day so that the terrible situation of her going into labor without him around would never have to happen. Hinata did not own a car anymore, and her phone bills had gone unpaid for years.

"Hinata, why don't I just take you to the hospital right now?" Naruto asked her, "if you go into labor, doctors will be right around the corner for you."

"I can't do that, Naruto, you know I can't," she said adamantly.

"Why not, Hinata? I don't know why," he wanted to know, however.

"I'd have to ride in a car, or an ambulance, or something that goes on the road," she said.

"Oh," Naruto could hear Neji speaking from his grave.

Finally, the time had come. Hinata went into labor. Naruto called a doctor on wheels for his services and then his wife. They both arrived roughly at the same time, with the doctor only three minutes ahead of Saeko.

For a good part of the day, Hinata's pained breathing and loud strains could be heard emanating from her bedroom along with the occasional swear. In her living room, Naruto paced with nervous energy while Saeko merely sat on the couch with her head dumped into her lap. For five hours, they waited like this until the screams stopped echoing and the doctor, who was a diminutive little man with a neatly trimmed mustache and a large, friendly nose, strolled in from Hinata's room.

"Hello everyone, you can come see the baby now. She and the mother are doing fine."

Eagerly, Naruto pressed forward and shook the doctor's hand.

"Thank you so much, doctor, for what you've done," he could barely restrain himself. Turning, he beckoned to Saeko.

"Come on, Saeko, it's time to name her."

She did not budge from the couch. Instead, she thrust a small folded piece of paper at him and turned away. Confused, he took it from her and began unwrapping it.

"Don't!" she commanded so suddenly that Naruto stopped.

"Don't open that until you get into her room," she said more softly.

"Oh," he said and put the paper into his pocket, "is this the name?"

"Yes," she replied, "now just take it and leave."

Without a second bidding, he left to go see Hinata and his new child.

She was sitting on the bed, crooning to a small pink bundle she had nestled in her arms. Every now and then, she would take one finger and tickle its face with it, stirring it from its nap and making it cry a little before falling asleep again.

"Don't do that too much, she was just born," he admonished her gently. She smiled at him. Her hair, rustled from the enormous strains she had just been through, fell all around her in nearly ethereal wisps of blue.

"Oh, I can't help it, it's just that I've carried this thing inside me for so long, but only today do I finally get to see what it looks like."

He walked over to her side and unfolded the sheet of paper.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's her name," he said and held it up to her eyes. It took a few seconds for her tired vision to focus on it,

"Uzumaki Suzuna."

She looked back at the baby.

"It sounds reasonable."

He folded the paper back up,

"Yeah, I guess so."

Things were quiet again as she continued to caress her lovely child and admire every trifling detail about it. Suddenly, Hinata broke the silence,

"Listen, Naruto, it's just a name. Saeko has every right to want to have something in this whole affair," she said.

"I know, you're right," he said, but even as his lips moved, he could tell Hinata was not convinced.

"Sit down next to me," she said, patting the chair next to the bed. He obeyed.

"Now, look at your child, my daughter," she let him catch a glimpse of its pink face and her wispy hair. A thrilling chill ran down his spine. Unable to control himself, he reached out gently, gently, very gently, to touch its cheek and stroke its small, small hands.

"This is _our _child, she's the one that you and I will love with all our hearts, Even though I cannot name this baby myself, and even though I cannot be a part in their lives until ten years have passed, she, like all of her brothers and sisters, will be a child after my own heart. She will be my beloved representation to you until we meet again; when we shall change our roles."

Meanwhile, the baby had awoken again and started to cry. She smiled and opened her arms, offering Naruto the chance to care for the child. Gently, he took it from her and rocked it from side to side. Its cries became fainter and fainter until it was gradually lulled back into its safe, happy slumber.

(1) Beware the Ides of March!!

_Hehehe, Naruto is a cheating weasel, but in a good way._


	17. Chapter 17: Where All Good Things Go

_Foreword: I would like to give a big thanks to Aya for being so supportive. I feel like a pro whenever I read your reviews . This is the last chapter for the story that I have written, but if you stick around a little longer, you might just get an extra... Well, anyways, yeah, the story is finally complete. Thank you very much, everyone who took the time to favorite this and/or review it, thank you thank you thank you._

Chapter 17: Where All Good Things Go

Hinata leaned back in her chair. The bright sun that had streamed into the room had long-since faded into lukewarm orange of the evening. Mitsuyo, Suzuna, and Orimi were still in their original positions since Hinata had started her very long tale.

Suzuna was astounded near to disbelief.

"Is that really all that happened?"

"Yes Suzuna, it is. Every single word of it is true."

To her credit, the fact that she had been living under the perception that Saeko had been her mother for her whole life made it hard for Suzuna to accept Hinata's account. Timidly, she asked,

"Are you sure?"

Instead of answering, Hinata stooped down to pick up a bag she had brought with her. After rummaging through it for a moment, she held up a small, dark object in her hand. It was a jewel-box, made of polished wood and inlaid with whimsical patterns of pearl.

"Remember this, Orimi?" she said, "you found it in my room once."

He squirmed a little, but his mother simply smiled and laid a hand on his head.

"It's alright this time," she said and opened it, revealing its contents to her curious children.

It was a collection of photos, ranging from aged monochromes to newer grainy-colored affairs. In each picture, there would be a boisterous blonde-haired child standing next to a rather demure, blue-haired girl. Here and there, another person could be seen; it was apparently a man, but with effeminately long hair.

"Take a look at this," she said. There was a slight blush on her cheeks as she tossed out one particular photo for them to see.

The blonde-haired kid and the blue-haired girl were standing in front of a large building. Believing that they were unseen, they were kissing, but some discreet photographer had managed to capture a slapdash shot of this poignant moment in two peoples' lives.

"I think one of my friends, her name was Tenten, took it," she said, "because she sent it to me about a week after this happened."

Hinata took out another one. It was taken in Hinata's room; the windows were open, so sunlight poured all over the photo. Naruto was sitting next to her bed as she lay on it, and nestled under her tired yet triumphant face was a small baby wrapped in a pink cloth.

"This is you, Suzuna, when you were born. The doctor was kind enough to take the photo for us."

She set the box down, letting Orimi and Mitsuyo look at what they wanted, and then looked at her oldest daughter.

"Do you believe me now?"

"Yes," a very small voice replied, "I see it now."

"I'm glad," Hinata leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes slowly, "after you, Suzuna, I also gave birth to Mitsuyo then Orimi and named you both according to what Saeko wanted. I would have liked one more, but by then, Saeko was so angry with Naruto that we decided to stop at three."

"How come she didn't just go and leave him?" asked Mitsuyo, "it's obvious now that he doesn't like her at all, and she knows that too."

Hinata opened her eyes again and stroked her hair.

"The only problem is that Saeko used to love Naruto so passionately, ever since they were first married, and that kind of affection doesn't die easily. On the surface, she's hated Naruto for how he's deceived her for all of those years, but she can't completely forget the man she knew when she married him. I guess when she insisted on naming you children, she wanted to make a last-ditch effort to be at least a small part of Naruto's life."

From her bed, Mitsuyo's small voice rose up to her.

"What was Neji like?"

"Oh, he was tremendously quiet, so you could mistake him to be a little shy. But really, I think he always had the fiercest sense of pride burning in his chest; he just never let it show. He would have loved you three."

"Where did you bury him?"

"At the base of our magnolia, right next to our… my mother. He would have liked that, and my mother would have been happy to be put down next to any family member."

"Is the magnolia still there?"

"No. It withered and died a few weeks ago. I chopped it up into many tiny pieces and let them drift away on the beach. Every single splinter of its wood I sent on the waves."

"Do you still have any of his drawings?" Mitsuyo asked once more, "I would have liked to see them."

Hinata shook her head, "No… I cleaned out his room years ago. Right after he died, I suddenly never wanted to think of him ever again. I began to become afraid of anything associated with him or that evil night."

"Oh," said Suzuna, "so that's why you wouldn't let us roll into the street with your scooter?"

"Yes."

"And that's also why you threw it away when Mitsuyo asked you?"

"Yes. I wanted to get rid of his memory completely, but it never worked."

Those two sisters sat together in silence, most conspicuously affected by these secret annals of their true mother's life and house they were learning. But before they could speak again, Hinata still had more things to say.

"…and I thought I could keep it up," she continued, "this systematic reduction and destruction of his image. It worked at first, it was working very well, but then the jellyfish stung you, Mitsuyo. You can't remember how pitifully you lay there on the sand trying to breathe, and here I was without a clue on how to fix you up. Of course, the only logical solution would have been to take you on an ambulance, but then I would have had to get on it and ride it to get to the hospital. I had never ridden or even gone near anything with an engine in it ever since Neji died.

"At last, I called your father, and he insisted that you go to the hospital. I just couldn't bear to bring myself to agree with that request, but then he said that if I wouldn't come, then he would fill in for me."

Hinata started stroking Mitsuyo's hand again.

"I have never been the smartest or best person in anything, but at that moment, I could have become the stupidest and worst. I could never let myself face your father again if I had been too afraid to care about our children, so I rode with you. All the way over here, over those bumpy roads that I used to know so well as a younger child."

She then turned her gaze to Suzuna and then Orimi. Her voice trembled again, but she did not cry.

"I'm so sorry that I tried so hard to keep these secrets away from you. Who knows how big of a fool I've been acting these past few weeks. I very nearly got you killed, Mitsuyo."

"But don't mistake my intentions," her resolution suddenly filled the room, "no matter what it seems like, or what anyone else will say, I love you all. Ever since I gave birth to you all, I have. Those years apart, I've been pining for the time I could tell you that I was the one who gave you life, and now I finally have. Now, feel those emotions from me, pent up for all this time."

Hinata pulled them all in for a hug, even Mitsuyo, who did not mind the pain it caused, and gave each of them a kiss on the head. A solitary tear crept down her cheek and landed on the bed.

For the rest of her stay, Hinata stayed in the room with her three children and let them get to know their mother. In the midst of their bonding, the nurse came back in.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but visiting hours are over. You'll have to come see her tomorrow."

"Oh, alright," Hinata said, "I'll be here then. Do you know when she'll be fully recovered?"

"The doctor says in about three days, so she'll be live and kicking at your house by then," the nurse smiled.

After those three days, just as promised, Mitsuyo was out of the hospital and on her feet. Naruto had already come by then and was looking after the house with Hinata.

"Good to have you back," he said after Mitsuyo walked in the door for the first time after her brief incapacitation.

"Thanks, dad," she smiled at him.

"All right, now let's get you some decent food," Hinata said, "I couldn't believe some of that stuff they gave you at the hospital."

"Yeah," Mitsuyo's head bobbed up and down enthusiastically, "sounds like a great idea, mom. What's for dinner?"

For the rest of the summer, the family spent their time together as happily as they could, but like all good things, it had to come to an end. Before they realized it, school was looming up only one week away.

"Do we really have to go?" they all whined. Naruto knocked each of them lightly on the head with his knuckles.

"Of course you do. Five o' clock today we're leaving. I can't send you to any schools here, and Saeko can't live all by herself at home."

"But we don't want to!" they half-declared, half-supplicated out of unhappiness.

Regardless of what they did or did not want, the clock chimed five in the afternoon. Dutifully but grudgingly, the children walked behind their parents to go down the hill one last time.

Oddly enough, once they reached the bottom of the hill, they did not go straight to the road where the bus would pick them up. Instead, Hinata led them into a dale that formed between her hill and another one that stood just next to it. Hastily, she climbed up this new hill, beckoning for the children and Naruto to follow.

"Where are we going?" Orimi voiced all the children's inner thoughts.

Hinata did not need to answer, however, because they had just reached the top.

There was nothing up here except for a tree stump and two gravestones planted right next to it. The one nearest to the tree was labeled "Hyuuga Neji", but the other one could not be named as it was covered with jars upon jars of seashells.

"I don't think you've ever met my cousin or my mother before," she said.

Naruto had walked over to the gravestones and knelt down in between them. Resting a hand on the top of each one, he gave each of them a smile. The wind was blowing gently, pushing his hair in front of his eyes and making his shirt flutter in the breeze.

"Hey, it's good to see you guys again," he said, "I thought I'd visit you once before all of us left. See here, these are my children…"

And the rest is already known.

_Hokay! It's done! and what's even better, I'm done with all my AP exams! Woohoo! This is the only fanfic I've ever had the lack of self-respect/diligence to complete. I just feel so… ashamed and proud at the same time. Whatevs, as long as I get lots of reviews, that'll be more than enough to make me feel better for all the time I put into this thing._


	18. THE END

PLEASE DON'T HATE ME!

Forwurd: Some of you have noticed that this story is written so that Naruto and Hinata could easily be ripped right out of the plot and replaced with characters that I might have come up with. I actually asked myself that question a few times when I was writing this, and I would wonder why I was using Naruto and Hinata when I could use anyone else I wanted to. The simple answer to that would be that I like the Naruto and Hinata pairing so much, I decided to use it for this story, because I like to imagine Naruto and Hinata acting this way towards each other. They do it so much better in the Narutoverse, but still, I like to see them acting the way two people who really love each other should, even if it leaves their characters a bit out of line.

_Epilogue: well, actually, it ain't really an epilogue. There is a reason why I put it here, and not in the main story, because now you know better than either Naruto or Hinata._

_The wind swept over the lonely coastline, sending up little eddies of sand and water. Not too far from where the waves met the land, a squalling mass of birds pattered around and argued with itself for food._

_In the midst of their raucous gathering, however, they heard laughter coming from just behind the sand dunes. Quickly, they split just as two people came walking along the sand; one boy and one girl._

_The girl sat down in the sand, letting the waves lap up to her feet, while the boy remained standing just behind her. He let down his hands and started brushing her hair absentmindedly._

"_Ahh, it's certainly nice to take a break from all that homework," she said, "I could go on the rest of my life without having to look at another stupid double-angle formula ever again."_

"_Yeah, you and me both," the boy said._

_They sat there for some time, when suddenly, the girl turned her head upwards to face the boy._

"_Naruto," she said, "tell me about our family. I want to hear about it again."_

_He sighed and rubbed his temples._

"_Oh come on," he groaned, half in jest, and half in genuine frustration, "not this stupid game again."_

_She simply laughed at him,_

"_Please?" she begged._

_He merely grunted in reply._

"_This will be the last time, I promise."_

"_Yeah, like you promised the time before that, and the time before that, and also the time before that…"_

"_Tell me about our family, now," she demanded. Her voice was flat and imperious, but her eyes twinkled through the cold, hard façade she had put on._

"_Fine…"_

_Grudgingly, he began in a monotonous voice that had been used once too many times._

"_We'll live in a large house, with five floors and windows that go floor to ceiling on every level. We'll keep a butler, who is to answer to us only when we ring a tiny silver bell and will have the newspaper ironed every Sunday morning…" he paused._

"_But the children," his companion said, her eyes shining in earnest, "you have to say something about the children._

"…_Alright, we'll have four children. Two girls and two boys, and we'll have them in alternating order, starting with boys. The boys will have blue hair, like you, while the girls will have blonde hair, like me. We'll spoil them rotten and let them run all around the house, eat bugs, do whatever the heck they want."_

_She laughed at that last bit, "yeah… it's just the part with the kids that I always like. Do you think they'll want any pets…?"_

_And so they passed the rest of the day playing in this frivolous, meaningless little charade that meant all the world to them. They were still young enough to feel like they could laugh and recover from anything that life would throw at them; small souls, but they ruled the world together. From their thrones, they controlled every single aspect of their lives, building up this grand view of the future in such a precise and controlled manner, and that night, went to bed thinking and believing that nothing could assail or mar their perfection._

_00000000000000000000000000_

_Credits (I didn't think of all this crap myself, you know?)_

_Influences drawn from:_

_Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston_

_Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind all by Orson Scott Card (who, by the way, is a top-notch author and I highly recommend you read the Ender saga if you haven't already. Actually, this guy is where I got the entire idea from, with the whole debacle between Novinha, Libo, and Marcos)_

_and a really tiny little bit from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (the car accident, and that's basically it)._


End file.
